Difference between 533mhz ram and 667mhz ram

Please tell me the difference,I am not very good with computer terminology so if you could explain it clearly that would be great.

Thank You

 

One runs at a higher frequency, so you could think of it as faster for general use. Your CPU must be able to utilize this higher frequency via wires (called a "bus"), otherwise your memory will downclock---or go slower---to synch up with your CPU. Go with a current generation Intel or AMD chip and you are fine.

When choosing between the two, always go for the one with MORE. I have seen some companies like Dell try to sucker consumers out of money by charging just as much for 1GB of 667mhz as for 2GB of 533mhz. In all honesty, I don't think you'll notice a difference between the two running all but the most memory intensive programs.

 

It refers to the speed at which the CPU talks with the RAM. The higher the speed, the faster the CPU talks with the RAM, resulting in faster performance. 667MHz is faster than 533MHz, although the difference will be hardly perceptible, in most cases.

 

While 667mhz ram will run at a faster clock speed, it also has a higher latency (the amount of time it take the memory to activate and deactivate). There have been some places reporting 533mhz ram with a cl4 (latency of 4ms) having better performance that 667mhz ram with a cl5 (latency of 5ms).

That being said, some people believe running your CPU ram in sync (at the same FSB) offers better performance. In this way, a CPU with a 667 FSB would be best paired with 667mhz RAM.

But in the end, it make no noticeable difference. Just get what most cost effective to you.

 

AMD's dual core CPUs will benefit more than Intel's CPUs from 667mhz memory because of the integrated memory controller.

 

The best way to get faster RAM is to use two identical sticks so they run in dual channel and you get double the bandwidth without the latency issues.

Keep in mind though, RAM speed isn't as important as amount.

 

So, the difference between the 2 following systems:
1/ Core 2 Duo 2GHz + 2GB RAM (bus 533)
2/ Core 2 Duo 2GHz + 2GB RAM (bus 667)
is no noticeable?

 

Yes it wont be noticable. MOst of the time the extra bandwidth provided by faster RAM isnt used. The increase in clock speed is to a certain extent negated by the increse in latency. So, the actual perofrmance increase is theoretical and only benchmarking software will notice the diference. For regular use 533MHz RAM wont hurt the performance too much. Plus it is not worth paying for 667MHz memory if it is over ~$25 compared to a equivalent533MHz memory module.

 

No it will not really be noticable, there may be a small increase in performance only if you run extremely memory intensive apps, but the slight performance increase will not justify the cost unless they are within $20 of each other, any more than that is a waste.

 

As stated, performance is pretty much a wash

The reason we are not seeing low latency 667 ddr2 has to do with voltage constraints, running more volts would allow lower latency but not very practical for sodimms in a notebook. 800mhz sodimms should be coming by next year (q1) which may allow lower latencies for slow clock speeds (and hopefully cheaper 2gb sticks).