Thinkpads Forum

Hey, sorry if this is the wrong forum, feel free to move/delete this if it is.

I was just wondering if anyone had any experiences with their t61's and getting 800mhz DDR2 sodimms.

There's a sale at frys.com now for 1GB 667Mhz sodimms for just 25 bucks after rebate. I'm wondering if those are a viable alternative, or if they'd just poop out, so to speak.

Any experience out there?

Not speaking from experience, but you should be able to use slower RAM modules; remember, though, that this will slow down your system more than if you were using DDR2 5300. Just make sure you get the right size, and there shouldn't be a problem.

You can use 667 mhz sodimms just fine. They wont run at the highest possible speed of the motherboard, but most laptops use this speed right now.

Fact is that it is not yet possible to buy 800 MHz SODIMM's, currently all the Santa Rosa laptops are shipped with 667MHz modules. That's the reason why this RAM is so cheap at the moment, they want to clear out their stock before the 800MHz RAM arrives. I guess it won't be possible to mix 667MHz and 800MHz RAM, or if it is it will run at 667MHz if it is possible. Therefore don't buy a new Santa Rosa laptop with 2GB RAM in one SODIMM, it's better to buy 2x1GB and upgrade to 2x2GB 800Mz in 1 or 2 years.. that's just what I think.

DDR2 800Mhz So-dimm is already available on Newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... (PC2+6400)

ahh, thanks for the tip. I didn't even notice that my t61 was shipping with 667 memory. I guess that'll have to do for now then.

Thanks for all the fast and informative responses!

rukiri wrote:I didn't even notice that my t61 was shipping with 667 memory. I guess that'll have to do for now then.

Lenovo is not offering any faster memory than 667MHZ at the moment (for thinkpads ofcourse), but they'll very soon (would not be a default option at first) as 800MHZ becomes (more) available in stock.

brnf wrote:Fact is that it is not yet possible to buy 800 MHz SODIMM's, currently all the Santa Rosa laptops are shipped with 667MHz modules. That's the reason why this RAM is so cheap at the moment, they want to clear out their stock before the 800MHz RAM arrives. I guess it won't be possible to mix 667MHz and 800MHz RAM, or if it is it will run at 667MHz if it is possible. Therefore don't buy a new Santa Rosa laptop with 2GB RAM in one SODIMM, it's better to buy 2x1GB and upgrade to 2x2GB 800Mz in 1 or 2 years.. that's just what I think.

Incorrect. PC2-6400 SO-DIMMs have been available both retail and OEM for 4-6 weeks now.

Surprisingly, the price premium for these chips is minimal (thanks to the ENTIRE DDR2 memory market TANKING in the last 3 months).

brentpresley wrote:Surprisingly, the price premium for these chips is minimal (thanks to the ENTIRE DDR2 memory market TANKING in the last 3 months).

Do you know the reason for that?

Good thing you are selling DDR1 memory only!

I couldn't find any on Crucial UK. However, I must comment that the regular SO-DIMMs are so cheap, I remember the DDR ones were so expensive - £120 or such for 1GB PC2700.

I have 1GB 800MHz sticks on hand, if somebody desperately needs them; but I don't think they are rare.

2GBs - yes, rare.

pianowizard wrote:

brentpresley wrote:Surprisingly, the price premium for these chips is minimal (thanks to the ENTIRE DDR2 memory market TANKING in the last 3 months).

Do you know the reason for that?

Good thing you are selling DDR1 memory only!

ALL the manufs overproduced DDR2 in anticipation of a huge Vista launch. When the launch sales were only mediocre, they were left with cancelled orders from all the big OEM computer producers. So the memory got dumped onto the spot market.

That dumping is directly responsible for the 75% drop in prices we have seen in the last 3 months.

Dead1nside wrote:I couldn't find any on Crucial UK. However, I must comment that the regular SO-DIMMs are so cheap, I remember the DDR ones were so expensive - £120 or such for 1GB PC2700.

Don't let the names confuse you. DDR and DDR2 are nothing alike. And their supplies are not linked in any way either.

DDR stocks were NOT built up in anticipation of the Vista release. So the marginal drops you see in their prices result only from the general drag on the market by the insane DDR2 drops.


My family all got "free" upgrades with the DDR2 I had on hand when the prices dropped. That was the only way I could unload them and still get something out of it (a write-off on the books).

I was saying that I remember when I was in the market for some DDR memory for my laptop one 1GB stick was about £100.

Whereas if I was looking for DDR2 now, it's so, so cheap. Not even comparable the prices.

Dead1nside wrote:I was saying that I remember when I was in the market for some DDR memory for my laptop one 1GB stick was about £100.

Whereas if I was looking for DDR2 now, it's so, so cheap. Not even comparable the prices.

I understand.

I was just saying they are STILL not comparable in price. DDR1 is almost 3X as expensive as DDR2 now.

brentpresley wrote:That dumping is directly responsible for the 75% drop in prices we have seen in the last 3 months.

...and me regretting buying the two 1GB PC2-5300 sticks for my T60 in late Jan/early Feb! They cost $70 shipped each!

pm965/gm965 chipsets support only up to 667mhz.

-bA

DDR2 is very cheap right now because the 3 big memory manufacturers got dumbed with a price fixing scandle.

"Il Ung Kim, a marketing vice president, is the sixth Samsung executive to agree to a prison sentence in the probe of price fixing for dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, the most common type of memory chips used in personal computers. Samsung is the world's largest manufacturer of memory chips."

Regarding the DDR2-800 memory for notebooks. Performance increase will be minimal when compared to DDR2-667. Maybe 2-5% memory bandwidth (even less overall significance), so I wouldn't get bent out of shape if I didn't have DDR2-800 in my T61.

boyAfraid wrote:pm965/gm965 chipsets support only up to 667mhz.

-bA

Wrong. 800MHz Dimms are FULLY SUPPORTED.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/09/inte ... ts-go-liv/
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9717634-1.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... tform.html

brentpresley wrote:

boyAfraid wrote:pm965/gm965 chipsets support only up to 667mhz.

-bA

Yes, but the T61 doesn't USE THAT CHIPSET.

I uses the 965 EXPRESS chipset.

http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/GM965/index.htm

PM965 is the 965 Express without the X3100 graphics.

GM965 is the 965 Express with the X3100 graphics.

Paul386 wrote:

brentpresley wrote: Yes, but the T61 doesn't USE THAT CHIPSET.

I uses the 965 EXPRESS chipset.

http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/GM965/index.htm

PM965 is the 965 Express without the X3100 graphics.

GM965 is the 965 Express with the X3100 graphics.

Doesn't matter.

BOTH still run 800MHZ memory.

brentpresley wrote: Doesn't matter.

BOTH still run 800MHZ memory.

No, the GM / PM 965 is capable of using 800Mhz DDR2 memory. That doesn't mean it does.

There will not be any significant difference between 667 and 800Mhz memory on your notebook.

Paul386 wrote: Regarding the DDR2-800 memory for notebooks. Performance increase will be minimal when compared to DDR2-667. Maybe 2-5% memory bandwidth (even less overall significance), so I wouldn't get bent out of shape if I didn't have DDR2-800 in my T61.

Actually, the jump in performance will be more than we saw with going from 533MHz to 667MHz DDR2 memory.

Why? Simple explanation.

In the previous jump in speed, you lost some performance because the latencies increased from 4 to 5.

With this jump from 667MHz to 800MHz, the latency remains CL 5. So the boost will be slightly more pronounced.

Also, Core 2 Duo chips are still memory hungry chips. They can fully utilize the 800MHz bandwidth. So this boost is not just for show. It does help performance.

Paul386 wrote:

brentpresley wrote: Doesn't matter.

BOTH still run 800MHZ memory.

No, the GM / PM 965 is capable of using 800Mhz DDR2 memory. That doesn't mean it does.

There will not be any significant difference between 667 and 800Mhz memory on your notebook.

BS.

You run a virtulization program like VMware on your machine w/ DDR2-PC4200 vs DDR2-PC5300 memory. There is a WORLD of difference with higher bandwidth apps. 800Mhz memory will help these apps out FAR more than even 2 speed jumps in processing speed would. (i.e. a T7600 vs a T7200).

And YES. The T61 DOES RUN 800MHz memory.

I have USED one and run the memory in it. Have you?

When were those Intel pages written? If written before 800MHz modules were available, that might explain why those pages only say 667MHz is supported.

brentpresley wrote:BS.

You run a virtulization program like VMware on your machine w/ DDR2-PC4200 vs DDR2-PC5300 memory. There is a WORLD of difference with higher bandwidth apps. 800Mhz memory will help these apps out FAR more than even 2 speed jumps in processing speed would. (i.e. a T7600 vs a T7200).

And YES. The T61 DOES RUN 800MHz memory.

I have USED one and run the memory in it. Have you?

No, I have not used a T61, but I can read.

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/6770/667pt0.jpg

There will be a performance boost from DDR2-667 to DDR2-800, however, it will not be significant (and probably not worth the money of an upgrade). You would never be able to tell the difference between DDR2-667 and DDR2-800 without a synthetic benchmark.

MOD EDIT: No Large Pics without warning in the Subject - no matter how mad you get

Just because Lenovo doesn't have it FS yet, doesn't mean the computer can't support it.



And I ALREADY gave you a REAL WORLD application that is EXTREMELY memory bandwidth constrained.

Can you NOT READ?

My Dell Inspiron 6000 can run 533MHz RAM modules but was shipped with 400MHz ones, because 533MHz modules weren't available when the laptop was introduced several years ago. I've replaced the original RAM with 533MHz sticks and the machine now runs noticeably faster.

Lenovo also sells 2GB PC2-4200 modules for T60/X60/R60, which obviously support up to PC2-5300.

brentpresley wrote:Just because Lenovo doesn't have it FS yet, doesn't mean the computer can't support it.



And I ALREADY gave you a REAL WORLD application that is EXTREMELY memory bandwidth constrained.

Can you NOT READ?

There is a difference between supporting it (like I said it did) and running it, like you said it did....

brentpresley wrote:And YES. The T61 DOES RUN 800MHz memory.

paul386 wrote:No, the GM / PM 965 is capable of using 800Mhz DDR2 memory. That doesn't mean it does.

I have used VMware, I understand its memory needs.

However, I will say again, you will not be able to notice the difference.

I have desktop memory that is rated for DDR2-1000. I have run it at speeds up to 1200Mhz and as low as 800Mhz. The only difference is in benchmarks...

Paul386 wrote: I have used VMware, I understand its memory needs.

However, I will say again, you will not be able to notice the difference.

Then you must be allocating only 256MB of memory to your VMs. B/C more memory, AND FASTER MEMORY make a HUGE real-world difference in the responsiveness to this program.

I don't care about synthetics and don't use them. What I DO CARE about is how quickly 1) my machines boot, and 2) how fast they load programs.

If you tell me that isn't FASTER with FASTER memory, I'm going to come out and say POINT BLANK that you either:
a) don't have a clue what you are talking about
b) lying b/c you can't admit when you are wrong
c) all of the above



So, since memory speeds don't matter, I guess you are running DDR2 PC2-3200 in all your laptops, right?