more ram or faster ram?

[omi3]

I am building a PC for my kid and have already ordered the bits. Being undecided I did a lot of swapping and changing in the planning stage, then cancelled the A6 apu I ordered thinking if I bought an A8 then it would be money well spent the PC being of acceptable pace for a longer time.

My dilemma now it do I take the 8GB of 1333mhz RAM out of my computer and substitute it for the 4GB of 1866mhz RAM I bought originally for an A6 APU build plan. My PC is hardly taxed I am not a gamer and run with Ubuntu 12.04 so it can have either type of RAM in it.

The system I am building will be running 64bit Windows 7, probably with a SATA 1 hard drive - ordered bargain basement price advertised only as 640GB. So, for the fastest best system with an A8 apu, no separate graphics card is it best to go with the larger amount of slower RAM or the smaller amount of faster RAM?

Machine will be used for light gaming / surfing. And I am out of budget so not buying any more anything for it for the time being.

Thanks for any replies.

[David (PassMark)]

As a general rule more is better than faster. At least up to a point. Having an extra 4GB for applications and a much larger disk cache should give a better overall experience than the smaller amount of faster RAM.

BUT, how many memory slots on the motherboard, and how many sticks do you have?
For example is the 4GB, 4 sticks of 1 GB, or 1 stick of 4GB?
Maybe you can put all the RAM in the machine?

[omi3]

I have 2 x 4GB 1333Mhz and 2 x 2GB 1866Mhz.

Both motherboards are 2 slots for the ram.

[David (PassMark)]

I would put the 8GB in the machine.
Or sell all the RAM and buy faster 4GB sticks.

[omi3]

That is what I thought 8GB of the slower RAM would be best. Kicking myself now for buying the 2GB 1866mhz sticks. Looks like I am going to have the fastest ram / slowest computer in our house.

Thank you for your help.

[omi3]

Ended up going with the smaller amount of faster RAM as told too after explaining it all to my kid. In a couple of months should be able to afford more fast RAM. Decision was made after buying a new HDD sata 3 after the bargain basement one proved to be a pile of junk.

http://www.passmark.com/baselines/V8...?id=5601723929

[FastTurtle]

Let Me Explain the difference between the AMD and Intel Onboard GPU's

The main difference is in the memory controllers.

Intel's don't take advantage of anything faster then 1066 rated RAM
Video performance on the Intel simply doesn't scale with faster memory speeds - they're not designed for it

On the other hand, AMD did design their A Series to take advantage of faster memory, not only for the CPU but the APU. Test results I've seen indicate that the performance gain from 1066 to 2k+ memory is between 20-30 percent on video alone. Well worth it as it makes gaming a far better experience.

Summary
Intel based - Get the most supported
AMD based - Get the Fastest you can afford (minimum of 4GB dual channel kit)

[omi3]

Let Me Explain the difference between the AMD and Intel Onboard GPU's

The main difference is in the memory controllers.

Intel's don't take advantage of anything faster then 1066 rated RAM
Video performance on the Intel simply doesn't scale with faster memory speeds - they're not designed for it

On the other hand, AMD did design their A Series to take advantage of faster memory, not only for the CPU but the APU. Test results I've seen indicate that the performance gain from 1066 to 2k+ memory is between 20-30 percent on video alone. Well worth it as it makes gaming a far better experience.

Summary
Intel based - Get the most supported
AMD based - Get the Fastest you can afford (minimum of 4GB dual channel kit)

Ended up putting in 8gb of 1866.