LR CPU vs RAM

I'm looking into buying a new laptop. Right now I'm runnig a XP32 on dual core 1.6 w/ 2 gigs of DDR2 667 RAM. I'm going to get vista 64 on my new machine and was wondering if it's more important to have

1) Core 2 Duo 2.0 with 4 gigs DDR3 1066

or

2) Core 2 Duo 2.4with 4 gigs DDR2 667

Unfortauntely I can't afford both.

What do you guys think?

DDR3 isn't worthwhile with a Core2 series CPU AFAIK, there's very little performance increase. Go for the faster CPU, and see if you can have it configured so you can upgrade to 8GB RAM later if you choose to.

I think the faster processor is the better choice.

I'd go with the second configuration as well but would probably just get DDR2 800 RAM myself.

#2 will be faster.

emorphien wrote in post #7716837
I'd go with the second configuration as well but would probably just get DDR2 800 RAM myself.

DDR2 800 would be a waste of money. Just stick with the DDR2 667 and try and get 8 gigs. Its a laptop so it won't be overclocked, so he wont need the extra mem speed. Just changing the mem from 667 to 800 wont get you much in terms of real work performance gains.

#2...that RAM still has plenty of bandwidth/speed for most apps. The new NVIDIA cards have CUDA which allows the GPU to assist on certain applications.

unrlmth wrote in post #7717975
DDR2 800 would be a waste of money. Just stick with the DDR2 667 and try and get 8 gigs. Its a laptop so it won't be overclocked, so he wont need the extra mem speed. Just changing the mem from 667 to 800 wont get you much in terms of real work performance gains.

The price different is usually minimal for 667 to 800, but for some reason I was thinking the FSB was 400MHz, it's not so the 667 would run 1:1 anyway.

Good post

Good post! I plan to move into this stuff after I’m done with school, as most of it is time consuming. It’s a great post to reference back to. My blog needs more time to gain in popularity anyway.

So the FSB speed directly corralates to the speed of the ram. ie. if my new comp has a FSB at 1066 and I get DDR 3 ram at 1066, thatd better than a FSB at 1066 with ram at 800???

Whats Lcache mean?

RAM speeds are complex, I suggest googling and reading up on wikipedia. It's not always obvious how things work.