top end ddr2 or ddr3 better

[i-zombie]

ok ive got a bit o spare cash and looking to upgrade my pc a bit
im currently running a qx9650 with some corsair ddr3 xms2 ram

would i be better changing mobo to ddr2 ram and getting top end stuff or is ddr3 better

theres not much i can really upgrade in my pc other than gpu-but the card i have performs fine in everything so i doubt id see a gain going up a gpu

but reading about it seems ddr3 performs better in tripple channel with i7 ive no desire to go down i7 route

any thoughts guys-cheers

 

[oneman]

I was just wondering what you are doing that see a bottle neck in. Difference between DDR2 and DDR3 is not great and performance on end application is limited unless you are pushing the PC to its limit.

Apps that are going to see a boost from memory speed are things like running multiple virtual machines or editing HD video.

 

[little_pob]

When the LGA775 boards started comming out with DDR3 support the benches were showing slightly better performance than the DDR2 counterpart but only around 4% faster at most. As you've already got the DDR3 I'd stick with it, unless you need a new motherboard and can only get DDR2 sporting variation.

To be honest if you don't want to move to an LGA1366 socketed i7 system, the best upgrade for your system would be an SSD (unless you've already got one). If looking at a couple for RAID array, I'd recommend a hardware RAID controller too.

If going for SATA 3 Gb/s drives grab a drive sporting the sandforce controller, e.g. the Corsair F120. If you want more future proof and are looking at SATA 600 drives the Crucial's C300 range are where you should be (currently) looking. Word of advice on the 64Gb and 128Gb versions of the C300, the write speeds are degrees lower than the 256Gb model (70Mb/s, 140Mb/s and ~230Mb/s respectively) due to the reduced number of NAND chips and therefore the ability to spread parallel transactions out.

Oh, if you go for the SATA 600 SSDs and decide you want to get a SATA 600 expansion card too, go for the Highpoint Rocket 620 if you don't want RAID and the LSI MegaRAID 9260-4i/9260-8i if you do want RAID.