Impact of slow RAM

[Towermax]

I'm putting together a file server and am curious about the impact of slow RAM. Specifically, the motherboard can handle DDR3-1600, but how much would it slow the system down if I used DDR3-1066? It won't be streaming files, just storage and backups.

 

[Elixer]

What OS is the file server going to use?
Will this be using a gigabit connection?
How many users?

If this is just for you, then, not that much.

 

[Towermax]

It'll be using WHS 2011 for now. Yes, it will have a gigabit connection and 8GB of RAM. And only two users, one of whom will not use it very much.

 

[Deders]

No need to bother with faster ram, the disks and network will be the bottlenecks.

 

[Dasa2]

When transfer files no it probably wont be a problem
http://www.freescale.com/pages/ddr-memories-comparison-and-overview:784_LPBB_DDR
DDR3-1066 DDR3-SDRAM 1066 MHz 533 MHz 8,528 MB/s
DDR3-1333 DDR3-SDRAM 1333 MHz 666 MHz 10,664 MB/s
DDR3-1600 DDR3-SRAM 1600 MHz 800 MHz 12,800 MB/s
Higher speed ram can improve cpu performance though especially things like compressing files zip

 

[tweakboy]

Hey Deders, is that a 8 core 16 threads ? If so you dont need a CPU for a long long time... GL

 

[AlienTech]

Even though the speeds are 50% higher between the low end and high end ram, actual real world performance hit will be less than 10%. The only time the ram speeds make a difference is for things like data base acces where a lot of data is in ram and calculations are done on it. The CPU itself ha sbuilt in cache so one that data is in the cache the ram speeds dont affect it either. Even 3D modelling which uses a lot of ram to manipulate the data wont show much difference. But if you go to a slower ram after using a faster one, you will see the difference but not really noticable for most things.

 

[Towermax]

OK, thanks everyone--looks like 1066 will be fine for this project.

 

[tweakboy]

I say go with Corsair 1066 and give it a little trick. OC it. You can progbably to 1300 for a little timing adjustment. gl
G SKILL is very good too.. just fyi,, thx let us know