PC tech question

[Lightning Blue]

Okay so I've bought a new PC and it seems to have Two 256 MB 400 MHZ dual channel Pc3200 DDR memory.

The salesman sold me a 512 MB non dual channel 333 MHZ PC2700 stick, and said it'll work fine!!

Will I degrade my system using this?

[Spectre X]

I do not know, but doesnt the PCxxxx's have to be the same for it to work?

[Malevolent]

If I remember correctly (and I might not since I had a bit to drink), your RAM will run at the lowest speed. So, your 3200 will run at 2700...same for the MHz...............

[DarkScythe]

yeah, you will effectively have 1GB of ram running at the slower speed because the pc may only run as fast as its slowest component.
But it's not a big deal because hard drives are still retardedly slower, so just shove it in for more ram and be happy lol

[holy_devil]

Okay so I've bought a new PC and it seems to have Two 256 MB 400 MHZ dual channel Pc3200 DDR memory.

The salesman sold me a 512 MB non dual channel 333 MHZ PC2700 stick, and said it'll work fine!!

Will I degrade my system using this?

[snapback]54463[/snapback]

im doubting the new stick will even work with your current. but if it does it will most likely downgrade, yea =\

[devicenull]

It may hurt preformance, but its not something that you are going to notice.  Even at that speed, the ram is still significantly faster the the HDD, or CD drive.   Most ram is backwards compatible, so if you had some in your old computer, chances are it will work in the new one.

[holy_devil]

It may hurt preformance, but its not something that you are going to notice.  Even at that speed, the ram is still significantly faster the the HDD, or CD drive.   Most ram is backwards compatible, so if you had some in your old computer, chances are it will work in the new one.

[snapback]54468[/snapback]

the ram isn't what does that, its the chipset. so if the chipset supports different speeds, it will automatically run at what the slowest is, but you wont really notice i guess, not sure on the difference in the PC values either, may or may not work. just check the pin colors and make they're the same(such as gold), on both ram+mobo

[Fewlio]

Most of the time, that will work fine, but there's a small chance it won't work. That's all there is to know really, you can always return it if it doesn't work. If it works, everything will run well enough.

[Black Mage]

one of three things:
1 - it won't work. shoot the saleman.
2 - it will work but all your ram will run slow. don't worry too much, the only thing you'll notice a performance drop in would be a memcached sql database with a million records. most vgas and hdds work significatly slower than pc2700 (last i checked). shoot the salesman in the foor for being misleading (work != work well)
3 - you have one of those fancy motherboards with multiple memory controllers and busses and all that fun stuff. every bank will run as fast as the slowest card in that bank. buy the store and have the salesman fired because you're bloody rich.

[Lightning Blue]

I decided to pay $110 for a 1 gb set from crucial and do it the right way.