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PCI RAM Extender Cards?
stevejsmith asks: "I'm going to buy a Dell computer which supports DDR RAM, however it only comes with two DIMM slots. I have lying around two 128MB sticks of RAM, and want to use them. I know RAM is cheap, but I want some way to put more than two DIMMS in this system. Short of getting a new motherboard, is there any way I can add more RAM? On Slashdot I remember seeing a PCI card that help RAM for a RAM drive, but is there such thing as a PCI card that just held regular RAM for system usage? If not a PCI card, any other suggestions?"
Putting ram on a PCI card is a bad idea in this day and age, peak PC2700 memory bandwidth is 2.7GB/s, peak 32/33 PCI bandwidth is 132MB... that presents something of a bottleneck :)
Just buy a computer with a sensible number of dimm slots to begin with.
Of all the things that a motherboard (or more specifically the collection of microchips known as the chipset) connects together the connection between the memory and the processor is the fastest the most important to performance. No other link, except between the processor and the motherboard even comes close in importance. Also, another issue that comes up is what is known as latency. Latency is the delay the system experiences when it requests memory access. It's not just how much data you can transfer, but how quickly you can have it after you ask.
For all those reasons it almost always makes sense, especially at today's prices, to have all the same memory modules in your system and the fastest memory your system can support. Even if you are able to recycle memory I would avoid doing so unless stability is an issue as many technical issues arise when DIMMS are mixed and matched.
Posted by Cliff on Sat November 16, 03:13 PM
from the I-have-no-idea-what-bus-bandwidth-means dept