Is DDR2-1200 the correct upgrade,or is 1066 acceptable

[Peaceonearth]

Greetings all! First, thank you for activating my registration so that I could request your expert help.

My side business is creating family video for the occasion of; wedding, birthday,...did a funeral once :-)
These encodings can take many hours while clients wait, so I am learning to OC, which has led me to believe I must need speedier RAM in order to achieve faster processing, as the data transfer rates appear to have maxed out.

I have been looking at the three fastest, workable G.Skill DDR2-1200 offerings on the Egg which will work with my MB, here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...8PC2%209600%29

but don't know which will offer the best cost/benefit for me. Or perhaps none will offer more than if I simply upgraded to 1066 spec sticks.
Thank you in advance for your assistance!

My system is:
Asus P5Q-pro with a Q9300 CPU, with a Noctua NH-D14 cooler
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231122
I OC stably to 3.3GHz but would not mind going a little higher.

[Tradesman]

You have a variety of options, the faster RAM will speed things up nominally, but your biggest bang for the bucks would be to upgrade to 8GB of RAM and (I'm guessing here) move to a 64 bit OS.

The difference between 1066 and 1200 wouldn't really be much of anything you'd see and while the 1066 vs 800 you'd 'see' a little bit more, I think I'd add another 4GB of RAM, depending on what your plans are and your budget, you could go another 4GB now at 1066 ( or 1200 ) and downclock it to run 800 w/ the sticks you have, then add another 4GB of the faster in the future.....or go 8GB of 1066 or 1200 all at once.

Additionally with the 64bit OS, you could move to a video editing package that can run native 64bit, then you'll really be smokin'.

Another way to speed things up would be to move (again guessing) from a single hard drive to a pair or more in RAID 0.

As I said, for video there are a number of options to speed things up

[Peaceonearth]

Thank you kindly. Your advice has been invaluable and I know what to do now.

[Tradesman]

If you need any other help, give a shout

[Peaceonearth]

Well, as long as you ask, thank you, there is something I do not understand;

when a computer is performing a task which pushes the CPU to ~100%, how can faster RAM make anything in that stream go faster? If I understand correctly, the RAM speed is the mega-transfers/sec but, that is not going to make the CPU process anything faster when it is already at 100%...
Obviously the answer must be simpler than I am making it.

[Tradesman]

While a CPU may be maxed out the faster RAM is still doing it's thing faster, say 1066 vs 800 (you can compare it to a car in a way, if a car maxes out at 8,000 RPM, depending on the gearing, while at 8,000 in a slower gear it may be doing 60 MPH while in a faster gearing at the same 8,000 RPM it may be doing 70 MPH.

As to my earlier suggestion, 4GB vs 2GB of RAM or 8 vs 4, the more RAM you have, the less often the CPU has to divert data to and from a virtual disk on your hard drive, so the data transfer is much faster allowing more time for the CPU to actually be working with the raw data, i.e. video

Hope this helps and is understandable....tried to keep it simple

[Peaceonearth]

Nicely explained, good analogy

[Tradesman]

Thanks, you ought to hear my introduction to LANs and networks, I equate them to small towns, where some can go anywhere, other places are off limits, others only certain people can go to, and/or do certain things, etc

[GSKILL TECH]

whoa 8000 RPM! What are you driving TMan?? =P

I'd suggest the G.Skill F2-8800CL5Q-8GBPI for video editing and such. 8GB of DDR2-1100 would be very fast and definitely enough to speed up your editing process.

If you would like to maximize the memory bandwidth, I would suggest two sets of the F2-9600CL5D-4GBTD since this is our top DDR2 memory package.

Thank you
GSKILL SUPPORT

[Peaceonearth]

I am still studying this complex upgrade, and learning the interactions (and lack thereof) of the multiple variables, e.g.;
the dearth of hardware drivers if I go from XP 32-bit to XP 64-bit, yet the forums are buzzing about the bugs in Windows 7 which, apparently is better, but can not guarantee drivers either. Both of which require clean installs (properly done), resulting in, possibly, days of downtime for various downloads and updates over dial-up,

Thank you for the RAM suggestion; clearly a very affordable, quality solution. Looks like the way to go if I can figure out the rest of this.
"I need a hug"

[Tradesman]

Peaceonearth
Win 7 has most of the drivers you may need built in, and if you go Win7 64 Ultimate , it has a built in XP compatibility mode (only prob I've run into with drivers wa for an old Umax scanner) which is through 17 Win 7 64 Ultimate builds/upgrades.

GSkill Tech,
Actually I was looking at Indy car specs, they unfortunately, are still rev limited to 10,300 RPM (far below F1 cars) but still do 0-60 in about 2.3 to 2.6 seconds depending on config (oval vs road course), racing starts this weekend (NASCAR), and Indy and F1 aren't far behind, you guys might want to look to sponsoring a car....Good advertising (all about Speed).......if you were to get your name on Danica Patricks cars.........Whooooo! all kinds of exposure (she'll be running full Indy schedule, about 13 Nationwide races...1 or more ARCA races..........and you might even see her in a Cup race)

[Peaceonearth]

Thanks to you guys, Decision made:
It is a necessary compromise for the time being;
I ordered the F2-8800CL5D-4GBPI, and will order another set along with a Windows 7 upgrade, toward summer as business increases.
I will definitely need help setting these up properly please.

[GSKILL TECH]

Not a problem, we'll be right here.

Thank you
GSKILL SUPPORT

[Peaceonearth]

The new RAM is installed and as expected is settling in at 400MHz 5-5-5-15 52, at stock settings and at 440 at the OC settings, according to CPU-Z.

I assume you need to know the stats of my standard OC in order to help me set them up properly:
440 @ 7.5 multiplier = 3300MHz
PLL = 1.58
NB=1.26
VTT = 1.26
DRAM voltage = 1.9
everything else is on auto except for PCI & CPU Spread Spectrum, and Speedstep - all disabled.

Please let me know what else you may need in order to help me, and, thank you again.
David

[Peaceonearth]

Please disregard my request.
I performed the obvious adjustment and set the DRAM Frequency in BIOS to 1103 (4:5), everything seems to be humming along nicely.

They are parked comfortably behind, and upstream from, the Noctua cooler. I do not expect that they shall be wanting of a good breeze.