- This topic has 9 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated Jun 11-6:49 pm by blur13.
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stevix
Two of my old laptops (one Dell and one Acer) were both made in same year (2009), both have identical processors, and both have 4Gb RAM. So I naturally thought they were the same spec. However, when I came to poke my nose in a little deeper I found they were not quite as identical as I first thought.
When I checked out the RAM the Dell showed DDR, 800 MT/s whereas the Acer came up as DDR2, 667 MT/s. So do I take it that the Acer is technically better due to being DDR2, even though the MT/s figure is lower? Or is there more to it than that? And even if one is technically better, is the difference likely to be noticeable in everyday use?
I’m only asking this out of sheer curiosity, no other reason. Thanks.
caprea
And even if one is technically better, is the difference likely to be noticeable in everyday use?
You should now be the one who can answer this best.
Brian Masinick
There’s probably not much visible difference unless it’s under peak load.
As Caprea says, since you have both systems, you can tell whether their performance is very similar or different. My “guess” is that you are likely to see a practical difference only when the resources in question are at maximum capacity; otherwise any other difference is due to different performance of the individual and collective components.
Here’s an example: my 2011 Lenovo laptop is not as current as my 2015 Dell Inspiron laptop, but in certain use cases their performance is similar; in other cases the Dell understandably performs better (more CPU capacity, replaced HDD with faster SSD, etc.) So it all depends on how you are using the system.
- This reply was modified 10 months, 4 weeks ago by Brian Masinick.
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Brian MasinickI’m currently running antiX on one and a much more “heavyweight” distro on the other, so it’s not really convenient to do any like for like comparisons. I suspected there may not be a really noticeable difference, and I don’t do any heavy going activities such as gaming. Quite recently I read something where somebody was going on about how DDR2 was better than DDR, and DDR3 was better than DDR2, etc, but how much better? Sometimes it can be difficult to weed out the hype from what really matters, and there are always going to be those that claim the latest thing is the best. Not that I take much notice of such stuff.
Brian Masinick
@stevix: If you are content with the way it is working and not into hardware details, I would then say, “Who cares?”
As long as it works and you are happy with the results, go with it.
Also if you are not interested in hardware details, when something doesn’t work as well as you want, give your system to an enthusiast who can tinker with it, time and/or replace parts while you get on with the things in life that are more important to you, and get a new system.
On the other hand, most people here are either enthusiastic or on a tight budget and cannot afford new things so they learn about technology (hardware and software as needed and they try systems like ours). This system may be useful for anyone including you. I’m only suggesting that to get the most out of the experience you may want to learn about a few things.
Marcelo Crepe consistently points people to guides, procedures and documents, many of which were written by member PPC. There have been references to these within the past week if you are interested.
- This reply was modified 10 months, 4 weeks ago by Brian Masinick.
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Brian MasinickI am happy with the set up I’ve currently got, I do tinker, and I have read some of the articles written by PPC. I’ve also no intention of giving away any of my stuff, and equally no intention of buying anything new, I’ve no need to. But if something arouses my curiosity then I’ll look into it further, as is the case here. I will always do a search to see if a similar thing has come up previously, before I post a question. The only articles I could find relating to DDR, DDR2, etc just basically said that each one was better than the previous one, none of them went into much further detail.
Although last night I came across another article that said if you’ve only got DDR then you’re stuck with it, as DDR2 and later are not compatible. Something to do with the slots on the motherboard being different. So there will be no tinkering in this instance.
As a bit further insight into my line of thinking, even as a young school kid (nearly 60 years ago) I was once told that I asked “Why?” more than anyone else in the class. So I guess it’s just me.
Brian Masinick
@stevix: As far as hardware technology goes, I am definitely NOT an expert. When I want to learn about specific things I read about them.
DDR versus the various alternatives is a great example of what I do know versus what I don’t know.
Because I regularly read technical trade press articles, I read about various technologies, but unless I’m going to actually obtain a different technology,
I know more about the NAMES than I know about what they actually are, their purpose or their advantages and disadvantages.
By at least seeing and hearing the names, when I actually want or need to learn something specific, THEN I look it up.
Often when I do so, there are additional terms that I do not understand. IF I have time, THEN I read about them.So in my case, it’s a general interest. I’m also way behind the current curve when it comes to software development technologies; that no longer matters because I am retired, but like the hardware details, IF I need to know something, THEN I read and study, otherwise the knowledge I have and retain these days is mostly about a few of the distributions that I repeatedly use and test. On my OLDER hardware, antiX is the first distribution I go to; other distros I frequently use are Debian (currently using a Sid derivative known as siduction), MX Linux, PCLinuxOS, and EndeavourOS. Two other distributions I often visit are Fedora and openSUSE, but I don’t currently have either of these installed at the moment. I’ve used countless distributions over the years; now that I’m retired, I’m down to 4-5 distributions that I regularly use.
In that regard we probably have at least a couple of things in common. Best wishes!
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Brian Masinick
marcelocripe
Hello stevix.
When I checked out the RAM the Dell showed DDR, 800 MT/s while the Acer came up as DDR2, 667 MT/s.
DDR 2 RAM memory card is much faster than DDR, just as DDR is much faster than DIMM. But that’s not all, if the quality of the motherboard is lower, you won’t notice any difference between the speed of the memories. The lower quality of the hard drive also slows everything down. At Associação Mutirão – CCA Jd. Fontális I can perfectly understand these differences, the same model and brand of the motherboard behaves differently, depending on the quality of the RAM memory card and the hard disk for the same antiX installed on this disk.
I usually say the following, “if the body (the motherboard) is bad, it’s no use having a good brain (processor) and a lot of memory, because the body connects all the parts.”– – – – –
Olá stevix.
When I checked out the RAM the Dell showed DDR, 800 MT/s whereas the Acer came up as DDR2, 667 MT/s.
A placa de memória RAM DDR 2 é muito mais veloz do que a DDR, assim como a DDR é muito mais veloz do que a DIMM. Mas não é só isso, se a qualidade da placa-mãe for inferior, você não perceberá diferença entre a velocidade das memórias. A qualidade inferior do disco rígido também torna tudo mais lento. Na Associação Mutirão – CCA Jd. Fontális eu consigo perceber perfeitamente estas diferenças, um mesmo modelo e marca da placa-mãe se comporta diferente, dependendo da qualidade da placa de memória RAM e do disco rígido para o mesmo antiX instalado neste disco.
Eu costumo dizer o seguinte, “se o corpo (a placa-mãe) é ruim, não adianta ter um bom celebro (processador) e bastante memória, pois o corpo interliga todas as partes.”Hello stevix.
When I checked out the RAM the Dell showed DDR, 800 MT/s while the Acer came up as DDR2, 667 MT/s.
DDR 2 RAM memory card is much faster than DDR, just as DDR is much faster than DIMM. But that’s not all, if the quality of the motherboard is lower, you won’t notice any difference between the speed of the memories. The lower quality of the hard drive also slows everything down. At Associação Mutirão – CCA Jd. Fontális I can perfectly understand these differences, the same model and brand of the motherboard behaves differently, depending on the quality of the RAM memory card and the hard disk for the same antiX installed on this disk.
I usually say the following, “if the body (the motherboard) is bad, it’s no use having a good brain (processor) and a lot of memory, because the body connects all the parts.”– – – – –
Olá stevix.
When I checked out the RAM the Dell showed DDR, 800 MT/s whereas the Acer came up as DDR2, 667 MT/s.
A placa de memória RAM DDR 2 é muito mais veloz do que a DDR, assim como a DDR é muito mais veloz do que a DIMM. Mas não é só isso, se a qualidade da placa-mãe for inferior, você não perceberá diferença entre a velocidade das memórias. A qualidade inferior do disco rígido também torna tudo mais lento. Na Associação Mutirão – CCA Jd. Fontális eu consigo perceber perfeitamente estas diferenças, um mesmo modelo e marca da placa-mãe se comporta diferente, dependendo da qualidade da placa de memória RAM e do disco rígido para o mesmo antiX instalado neste disco.
Eu costumo dizer o seguinte, “se o corpo (a placa-mãe) é ruim, não adianta ter um bom celebro (processador) e bastante memória, pois o corpo interliga todas as partes.”Yes Marcelo, I came to the conclusion a couple of days ago that there are too many other variables to consider. For a completely unrelated reason I did another comparison yesterday. I have a different distro installed on a portable hard drive, and I was checking it’s boot up time. The device is only USB2 and the ports on all my machines are USB2, so I expected things to be a bit slow, but I didn’t expect what I discovered. First off I plugged it into the Dell and carefully timed how long it took to boot, and made a note of it. Then I plugged it into the Acer and timed that, and it took 10 seconds longer. Then as a final check I plugged it into my little netbook, which has a less powerful processor and less than half the RAM of the other two. It booted 5 seconds faster than the Dell, and 15 seconds faster than the Acer. So it booted faster on the least powerful machine, which makes no sense at all to me. But it is what it is, and I don’t intend to delve into it.
And yes Brian, I often recognise names but haven’t a clue what they relate to! I guess I’m similar age to you (I retire in few months) and I think you get to an age where your head is full, there’s just no room left to put anything else in it.
blur13
antiX boots up much faster on my netbook than on my much more powerful desktop system.
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