IS DDR Worth the extra$$$$$$

[Guest]

Is DDR ram worth the extra $$$bucks and does it really perform better than SDRAM??? Will I get a bang for my buckThinkin of building a new system and Some of the SDRAM boards are on sale.Of course its for FS2k2 and I have 3 high end panels.Thanks

[Guest Max Cowgill]

Short answer: yes. Long answer: do you really want it? ;) (will provide if asked)Max Cowgill

[Guest]

Yes, Yes, Absolutely, by no strech of the term, without wait, For sure, No doubt about it Get the DDR.I built a system with sdram,went from a PIII700 to a Athalon XP1600.Benchmark difference with the sdram board was around 350 from the 700. Not happy I returned the MB, and bought a DDR board, and Ram and saw well over 2000 increase in Benchmark scores.!Al

[Guest Max Cowgill]

>Yes, Yes, Absolutely, by no strech of the term, without >wait, For sure, No doubt about it Get the DDR. >I built a system with sdram,went from a PIII700 to a Athalon >XP1600. >Benchmark difference with the sdram board was around 350 >from the 700. Not happy I returned the MB, and bought a DDR >board, and Ram and saw well over 2000 increase in Benchmark >scores.! >>Al What does this mean? Is an Athalon anything like the AMD Athlon? "2000 increase in benchmark scores" what the heck? That is a worthless statement without any kind of qualifier, i.e. which benchmark, what test, what was previous score, etc.... Oh well, nitpicking aside, at least you gave the right advice :)Max Cowgill

[Guest]

Hmm seems you got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.well it really shouldn't matter what test being that the first increase was 300, the second increase from was 2000, showing a major increase from one to the other. If I had said Plainly I have a benchmark of 6500 without explination then I could see your point. The chip was labeled XP1600 So yes that would be an AMD athlon.Simple in wother words Get DDR.BTW what was the point in your post Nitpicking the way I gave advise? Did you really need to say anything? Geesh.Al

[michal 44]

Benchmarks are OK but they are 'synthetic' - I would rather know how does it relate to running FS2002 (with DDR and without) ?Michael J.

[Guest]

What is the difference between DDR ram and sdram?? im on my way to creating the perfect flightsiming computer.any advice is appreciated

[Guest Max Cowgill]

By "difference" I assume you're referring to the definition of DDR? DDR stands for Dual Data Rate SDRAM and achieves this "Dual Data Rate" by transmitting/receiving data on both the rise and fall of the electric signal. Theoretically, this can yield twice as much throughput as SDR (single data rate) SDRAM, but in the real world the performance difference is dependent on the platform, type of memory used, bus architecture, memory controller, and how the applications being run on said system are coded. In other words, the performance difference you'll see between DDR and SDR SDRAM is not nearly as much as the theoretical maximum performance difference between the two, but DDR will provide a healthy performance boost for any data-intensive apps (basically any modern 3d-app whether it be a game or an engineering/rendering tool). There's hardly any price difference between DDR and SDR SDRAM nowadays so why not go for the faster of the two? Max Cowgill

[Guest Max Cowgill]

>Hmm seems you got up on the wrong side of the bed this >morning. >well it really shouldn't matter what test being that the >first increase was 300, the second increase from was 2000, >showing a major increase from one to the other. If I had >said Plainly I have a benchmark of 6500 without explination >then I could see your point. The chip was labeled XP1600 So >yes that would be an AMD athlon. >Simple in wother words Get DDR. >BTW what was the point in your post Nitpicking the way I >gave advise? Did you really need to say anything? Geesh. >>Al The "point" sir, was that I was correcting the mistakes/pointing out innaccuracies in your previous post. When discussing things of a technical nature it is often best to be as accurate as possible, wouldn't you concur? As far as your benchmark reference goes, it still means squat. You haven't named the benchmark or the test that was being run! Throwing numbers out with a before and after result without explaining how those numbers are relevant or what they mean is useless. I could say "the AMD Athlon XP (Thoroughbred core) is 2000 benchmark points faster than the Pentium 4 (Northwood core)" and that statement wouldn't actually mean anything, although it may be correct in certain circumstances. "well it really shouldn't matter what test being that the first increase was 300, the second increase from was 2000" When you make statements like that it demonstrates that you do not know what benchmarking is, or how it works other than on the most basic level. There is no universal benchmark performance reference guide that says 300 points = x performance gain and 2000 points = y performance gain. We still don't know what benchmark you were using, or what equation that benchmark uses to determine performance in the particular test that was being run. Every benchmark is different, and a 1500 point difference in one may only be a 500 point difference in another. Do you see my point now? As a side note, Al, I'm not attacking you personally nor am I attacking your intelligence, just pointing out that what you said would need to be represented in a different manner to be a valid statement.Max Cowgill

[Guest]

YES GET DDR ITS FASTER !!

[Guest]

A few months ago I would have said no, but as the difference in price has gone down from 400% to just 100% that's going to change.If you can afford it without getting something of lower spec elsewhere, go for it. But don't save by getting a cheaper motherboard or harddisk for example.

[Guest Max Cowgill]

Unless he's getting PC3200 DDR instead of the standard PC2100 or even PC2700, price isn't really an issue... RAM is so cheap nowadays how can you not get better RAM? Definitely get DDR, SDRAM is obsolete and will never again be used with any high-performance chipset. Might as well spend an extra few bucks for something that's going to give you better performance and last longer.Max Cowgill