6Gb DDR2 or 4Gb DDR3 for notebook?

[melissaw]

Hi,

I'm planning to buy a notebook which requires at least 4Gb RAM. I can only afford 6Gb DDR2-800 or 4Gb DDR3-1067 RAM. Which is better?

Anyone know the list of notebook chipsets that can support 8Gb DDR2? It's hard for me to tell if the RAM can be upgraded to 4Gb or 8Gb.

If I use DDR3-1067, the processor must have 1066 FSB in order to fully utilize it? Correct me if I'm wrong. What other things that I should pay attention to?

Thanks in advance,
Melissa

[WMBrown]

There are 4GB DDR2 sticks coming out.... only few notebooks has confirmed to work with 2 x 4GB = 8GB.
- DDR2-800 notebooks can support it (Clevo D901C, and a few others)
- Santa Rosa notebooks might be able to (not confirmed)

Montevina notebooks should not have an issue with going to 8GB... since its the transition to DDR3

[Russell]

HP 8710 and 8510 support 8gb ram. as for the 4gb support, i wasn't able to compile a list but was able to find this bit o' information. If it's a Intel mainstream chipset like GM965 or GM945 Intel chipset, it can support 4gb. If yours is a Intel value chipset like GM943 or GL960, then only 2gb max.

Montevina notebooks should probably support 8GB RAM.

[melissaw]

Thanks WMBrown and Russell.

I got my answers where there's a list of notebook memory details and chipset information.

I even found a 4Gb DDR3-1066 RAM SODIMM here when I was doing a search today! Super Pricey!

But still...it doesn't help me to choose between 6Gb DDR2 or 4Gb DDR3

[Amd Athlon]

I'd choose DDR3 over DDR2... amount of Ram can be added later, but motherboard practically is not replaceable. But the prices of DDR3 Ram is very high. What you can do is, pick up 4GB of Ram and upgrade 6GB of Ram later if necessary or maybe some softs & games would demand it in the future.

[Baltazar]

Bla bla bla over 'X'gb is overkill. Well it all depends how you use your pc. USUALLY over 4gb is overkill. For me it's not. It all depends. Just games? ... 4gb is enough. And check prices, is it really worth it? And 4gb DDR3 prices are insane atm. DDR2 not so much.

[gygabite]

DDR2 vs DDR3 won't matter at all, bottleneck will be in hard drive and CPU. Just pack it full of RAM, at least 4GB or more.

[melissaw]

I'm a typical girl... so I don't play games. I need to run data analysis. Minimum software requirement is 4Gb RAM. Although desktop is best fitted for the job, I hope to do it when I'm not in the computer lab or travel. 4Gb only might be killing me! But honestly, I feel a bit reluctant to pay so much more for a 4Gb DDR2 compared to a 2Gb DDR3.

I'm currently interested in Dell XPS studio 13. Now Dell is offering a good deal.
Processor P8600 (2.4Ghz, 1066 FSB, 3Mb Cache)
4Gb DDR3 RAM
320Gb 7200 RPM Hard disk

[Sebastian.j]

I'm currently interested in Dell XPS studio 13. Now Dell is offering a good deal.
Processor P8600 (2.4Ghz, 1066 FSB, 3Mb Cache)
4Gb DDR3 RAM
320Gb 7200 RPM Hard disk

At what price Dell is offering this? What other offer is given by Dell?
I have this laptop with 500GB hard disk. From its performance to the groundbreaking texture of the touch pad, this computer is by far the best laptop I have ever owned. Its speed, with 4Gb of ram, is lightning fast. The 500Gb hard drive leaves no reason for an external even though the transfer rate through the eSATA port is 25Mb/Sec. I don't play many video games but I do love my movies, and the default graphics card delivers life-like results. With all the hot keys on this machine, any one, from child to expert, could master operation in no time. The revolutionary scrolling and zoom features accessible from the touch pad are like nothing I've ever seen before.