Solved: Advice on memory speed

[GenieB]

I find myself now having do upgrades on my computer since my husband passed away several months ago.

Due to video editing, that I now are involved with, I feel I need to upgrade the memory in my system.

The system is a hp 7680 and has 4 slots. 2 slots each have 1gig 533 mhz ddr2 chips.

My question is, if I add 2 more single gigs sticks, do they have to be 533 mhz or can I go to a higher speed chip, like 633 or 800?

 

[shinybeast]

If you go higher then the new memory will run at 533 if you keep the installed memory. E.g. you install 800 MHz memory and it would run at 533 because it's got to be synchronized.

 

[GenieB]

So, would I be ok, is taking out the 533's and replacing all slots with the same speed?

I know this sounds crazy, but the computer itself isn't expecting to find 533 all the time, is it?

Here's another question, that maybe I should have asked first. I will be doing a lot with graphics, imagining and video editing. With the memory I have above, would it seem best to just add two 533's and go to 4 gigs, or do you know if chip speeds play a major factor in graphic work?

Appreciate the help.

 

[DaChew]

When I am upgrading ram on a computer I run this utility

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

I can see what cas levels the current ram supports

then I go here and plug in the motherboard or computer model and I crosscheck everything

http://www.crucial.com/store/listproductline.aspx?mfgr=HP - Compaq&cat=RAM

HP makes a

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hp+7680&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=

 

[shinybeast]

The computer's memory will run at the speed of the slowest ram stick. So, if you have 2 533 sticks and 2 800 sticks they will all run at 533MHz. If you have 4 800 MHz ram sticks, they will all run at 800MHz. Be sure to check with manufacturer to see what is supported and follow their recommendations as DaChew said.

If you have a desktop/tower you may be better served by getting a better video card. CPU speed is much more important to video editing than RAM speed. Changing RAM speed does not significantly improve performance.

 

[DaChew]

I would like to add one more idea, with vista 32 bit and a dual core cpu or better, adding another gig or two/matched sticks) would furnish some performance improvement

A single core cpu or windows xp would probably not show as much an improvement

 

[GenieB]

Thank you all very much.

I have XP and a dual core. LOL! Until my friends stop complaining about Vista, I am sticking with my XP. I keep checking my local Staples to ensure XP is on the shelf, should I upgrade my whole system to something new.

I had not thought about the video card, but will look into that too. (Oh dear.. another learning curve). My husband built a quad core last year before he died and I have tried my video editing software on there but it crashes a lot. On my system it doesn't crash nearly as often and I do believe I have a much better video card in system then this - so that may also be a consideration. I started looking at that once but there are some many gamer cards out there I don't know how to seperate them from what I need.

I do appreciate all the information and feel very knowledgeable now about the memory issues.

Thank you all very much.