? Memory

[seadooman]

I Have a gigabyte motherboard,K8NS.At frys purchased it with 256 memory kingston KVR400/256R..Two days ago I ordered from kingston 512 of memory to add used there memory look up program,now the memory I recieved was KVR400X64C3A/512..I installed it and it seems to be working nd was added up correctly in bios..But what is the difference???Now the board is 64 bit is that why the numbers are diff.Please help..

 

[Freestone]

Not sure I understand your question. One module is a 256MB DIMM and the other is a 512MB DIMM. They both are Kingston Value RAM with the same CAS timing of 3.

KVR400/256R:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820141468

KVR400X64C3A/512:

http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator/PartsInfo.asp?ktcpartno=KVR400X64C3A/512

 

[paparazi]

I'm equally unsure of what you are asking?
But I'll have a guess

The Gigabyte GA-K8NS is a socket 754 (Athlon64) motherboard so does NOT have dual channel memory controller.
What this means is that there is know benefit from fitting a matched pair of memory modules for the purpose of "Dual Channel" enhancement.

Naturally your original 256mb strip would have been only just adequate (enough) capacity for basic computing, any memory intensive applications would have soon used up what little spare memory was available causing "page filing" (the temporary use of the hard drive) which as you doubtless know slows down the system dramatically.

Fitting the extra 512mb gives your system the reserve memory capacity needed to run smoothly with memory hungry applications and prevents the need for the system to call upon the hard drive which naturally (because it is mechanical and many times slower than flash memory) slows things down.

As for outright speed: the perception is more memory more speed, the reality is once the optimum amount for your use is exceeded there is little gain. That optimum depends on applications used but for the average office/surfing PC that is around 512mb, so in your case the real benefit was taking it away from the minimum required (256) and over that 512 threshold, 768 is indeed a nice amount to have for the average user.

There are however many instances where even 768mb is insufficient, heavey hard core gaming, graphics and video editting may require one or even two gig to run at there optimum.
As a side note* and I think you may have been hinting at this?
64bit Windows Vista is rumoured to require an absolute minimum of 512mb to run with a recommended 1gig average to work comfortably, this really ups the anty and most uses choosing to move to Vista will have to buy more memory at the same time.

Martin
Martin

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Participate and help others.

 

[seadooman]

the question is are these two different part numbers on memory modules are different but they appear to work,are they compatible?

 

[PRPhx]

seadooman:
Does your pc beep at you when you boot it up? Is all your memory (768MB) showuing up in the System applet, of the control panel?

If your not getting a bunch of beep and your pc is booting up properly AND the System applet is showing 768 MB of RAM, you don't have anythig to worry about.

 

[Freestone]

The numbers have to be different because they are different density modules.

I'm guessing the letter R in the 258MB module part number KVR400/256R stands for Retail, whereas the longer number KVR400X64C3A/512 for the 512MB module is the actual Kingston part number.

They appear to be as compatible as you can get, and if they are working as PRPhx describes, you should be fine.

 

[seadooman]

Thank you very much for your help.Yes one module was purchased retail and other from kingston..Thank you for taking the time and answering my question..