# Is there a perceptible difference between PC5300 and PC6400 RAM?



## Hansen (Jan 1, 2006)

Is there a perceptible difference in speed between PC5300 (667) and PC6400 (800) RAM? I'm running a HP MediaSmart Server (running Windows Home Server) and upgrading the RAM to 2 GB. It appears it can use either PC5300 (667) or PC6400 (800). I have a stick of 2GB PC5300 (667) with a CAS of 4 and a 2GB stick of PC6400 (800) with a CAS of 6. The stick of PC5300 is already in there and I'm trying to figure out whether it's worth it take it all apart again to put in the PC6400. Will I notice a real world difference? Thanks


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## mmccaugh (Dec 17, 2008)

Like anything else it really depends on your systems load, if it is only processing sporradically then no you probably will not notice any difference, if it goes long spurts where it is processing a lot of data, then yes it is worth it.

The way I suggest thinking of it is driving a car, is it worth it to go an extra 5 MPH?

If you are driving down the road to walmart probably not, because it's saving you maybe 10 seconds worth of driving? at the risk of having an accident.

If you are driving 600 miles however that extra 5MPH cuts almost an hour off your trip.


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## rudeney (May 28, 2007)

If you are really using this computer as a server, it is very unlikely that you'd notice a difference at all. RAM speed is most noticeable when transferring huge amounts if data across the bus, and that usually only happens when gaming or photo/video editing (i.e. getting images in the computer's RAM to the video card for display). Servers are usually not very RAM intensive unless you are running something like a database server with a large number of simultaneous users.


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## sideswipe (Dec 4, 2008)

most (if not all) motherboards now do dual-channel, which means using 2 (of the same) sticks is faster than 1, 3 slower than 2 or 4 if they arent the same then you will accually notice a difference in most if not all preformance, with dual-channel they have to be identical ie. pc-6400 with lat of 4 (or whatever) same applies with new x58 ddr3 motherboards (yes not in this thread but if any 1 is reading this may be considering it) they run triple-channel, needs 3 identical sticks so ex. 3x1gb sticks faster than 4x1gb sticks


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## Hansen (Jan 1, 2006)

Given that the PC5300 RAM has a CAS latency of 4 and the PC6400 has a CAS latency of 6, wouldn't the PC5300 actually be slightly faster?

The mother board for this small server only has one channel, thus limited to one stick. Trying to determine which stick will give better performance and then return the other stick.


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