1 Gb Ram Faster Than 4 Gb Ram?

Hello,
Why is my 1GB ram faster than 4gb ram. I did a mem test and below are the results?

OS: Win XP, 32bit
below is what is written on the ram sticks.
Original ram is 1gb: DDR2-533 CL4; PC2-4200U-444 10
New 2x 2GB ram:
RAM: DDR2-533 CL4-4-4 12; PC2-4200 1GBx2
======
Memtest 1gb results
mem copy: 2207 MB/s
mem read: 2978 MB/s
mem write: 1703 MB/s
mem latency: 125.0 ns

memtest 4gb results
mem copy: 2095 MB/s
mem read: 3725 MB/s
mem write: 1527 MB/s
mem latency: 135.7 ns

 

The capacity of the RAM has nothing to do with the speed.

 

There's a difference of 10.7 ns in the latency, hence the speed difference. The higher the latency, the slower the RAM. Curiously though, even with the higher latency, the 4 GB RAM mem read is 747 MB/s faster than the 1 GB RAM.

 

@mdonah thanks for the reply. What I can say is that with the 4GB it is painful use the computer. But with the 1GB it is fair. I can feel a big difference even without doing the mem test.
So what could be wrong?

 

Have a look over here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR2_SDRAM

You have PC2-4200.
If you get PC2-8500, the peak transfer rate will be double.

 

@Eldon thanks! With the link you suggested, the peak transfer will increase. But looking at the latency it is the same.

After lookinat at @mdohah suggestion, looking more detials at the same mem test the 1gb shows: 532Mhz with 4-4-4-11. The 4gb shows: 530MHz with 4-4-4-12. This explain why the 4gb is slightly slower. But with this small difference, I feel the pain.

 

That's why I suggested you get PC2-8500 aka DDR2-1066.

 

To be honest, it's more likely that it's not the RAM. Using your computer on 4GB, compared to 1GB should be night and day improvement.

My suggestion, and that is based on ten years of supporting RAM upgrades for a living, is to look at all the hundreds of other factors that can slow down your computer. Start by looking at defrag for your hard drive, the number of background processes you're running, and what they are. Windows XP 32-bit is not supported by Microsoft anymore, so it's entirely possible you have uninvited "guests" installed on your PC. If you do, the outstanding people in the Malware Removal Forum, are the ones you should be talking to.

 

@Mimsy thanks for the reply. I still have my 1GB ram. So I can remove my 4gb ram and insert my 1gb ram to compare. With everything being the same upon boot up, I open an application, there is no "night and day" difference. The 1GB is less painful to work with. With that said I don't see how your suggestion would help?

 

Some computers are persnickety about what components are in them. They'll work fine with the factory installed components but not so well with "substitutes". Unfortunately, yours might be one of those computers.

While not so persnickety about the "substitute" components I've put in my Dell Precision M70 laptop, it is so with the OSes I've used (Win XP Pro, Win 8.1 Core, Win 10 Pro). Win XP Pro just zips along on it and makes much better use of the 2 GB of RAM in it.

 

1) Most WinXP users would be hard pressed to use 1GB of ram, much less come close to using 4.
2) Its quite possible for 4GB of ram to start stomping on the hardware depending on the explicits of what is in use. A 32 bit O/S (XP!!!!) can only address 4 GB maximum and things like whatever is plugged into PCI slots can start screaming like a banshee because one of their necessary resources now has a competitor. If its something like a modem, you may never notice that the modem doesn't work anymore while Windoze chews up 20+% of the PC trying to make it work. On this, we would have to have exact makes and models to begin to troubleshoot.
3) Speed numbers that matter in descending order: CPU, Video, Hard disk drive, ram memory. Ram memory has always been the second fastest component of any computer and is last on the list for improving speed as long as you have enough to hold the tasks you are asking the computer to perform (see #1 above).
For you to have a noticeable drop in perceived performance, I have to think that #2 has bit you in the b*tt. Something, hardwarewise hates 4GB and the PC is fighting like mad to figure out how to make it work. Did you think of buying another 1GB module to match the original and stopping at 2?

P.S. To reinforce #3, did you realize that "mem read: 2978 MB/s" was probably 50 times faster than your hard disk drive?

 

This is more or less what I was getting at. I would suggest setting your amount of installed RAM to 2GB and start ruling out other factors.

 

Along your lines of thought, I had a similar inkling. The 32-bit OS will support 4 GB of RAM but, perhaps his BIOS doesn't. The Precision M70 I referenced in my last post won't even boot with 4 GB installed. It just shuts off after 3 seconds. The BIOS doesn't support more than 2 GB and there haven't been (and there's not likely to be) any BIOS updates.

 

Even if the BIOS does, most 32-bit applications, both drivers and programs, were written for a max of 2GB RAM, and the vast majorit yof them are no longer supported/updated for WinXP.

There's lots and lots of things that are more likely than faulty RAM here.

 

Even if you install the highest possible frequency RAM, the latency will most likely be higher than a lower frequency. Additionally, the density of the RAM can play a part as well. With the potential limitations in the BIOS coding it is more likely you would be better off with DDR2-800 with a latency of 5-5-5-12, or 4-4-4-10 should your machine choose to accept it. XP will likely only use 3.25 GB of that RAM, per the OS. Potential BIOS limitations can limit the speed of the modules you are able to install, i.e., you may not be able to use PC2-8500 because it may prevent the machine from completing POST, or booting at all.

Did you run a check with Crucial for the RAM? What is the specific make and model of your PC?

 

I know I'm repeating myself, but I really think the RAM needs to take a back seat to the fact that OP is running an outdated and unsupported OS on hardware it was never intended for to begin with...

 

No disagreement whatsoever. I decided not to launch into my usual "Are you seriously still running XP" tirade. So much myth out there. Vista is far more secure, and more stable than XP. Unfortunately, Vista did lack legacy drivers in the early days and Open GL had it's issues. However, for the basic user, XP loses to Vista on most counts. Like not being 64 bit.

A lot of later model XP machines were DDR2 Vista downgrades, but XP was not really designed around DDR2.

 

Or CPUs with more than one core. Or GPUs that can keep up with modern anything. But I think we may be derailing the thread a little bit...

OP has an actual problem: His computer runs better at 1GB than 4GB. My advice: Lower RAM to 2GB and if still having issues, look at software causes for them.

 

I'm really leaning toward a density issue. If the modules are 256Mx16, the BIOS may not like it.

 

I'd agree with you, if it wasn't for the fact I've never seen a density-BIOS incompatibility that would allow said BIOS to POST.

If the density is wrong for a BIOS, BIOS won't be able to recognize the DRAM sticks as valid memory, and the motherboard will act as if the memory slots are empty. This goes for speed, timings, voltage, everything - if BIOS isn't able to recognize the memory as actual memory, you won't be able to get to a BIOS screen, let alone a desktop.

 

I thought I saw an old Dell do it once. The 64Mx16 ran like crap, but the 64Mx8 (1GB modules) worked fine. The machine had me thinking that the x16 modules were scrap, but I vaguely remember using them in another rig (this was MANY moons ago). Or, it's possible I was bleary eyed and mixed densities without realizing it...

 

Good advice.

I run Windows XP with 3 GB DDR3 RAM and everything executes instantly.

Joseph_spy, I think the problem lies elsewhere and you're assuming it's the RAM which actually has a 25% higher read speed. Run this program and post the results.
UserBenchmark.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/userbenchmark.html

 

We still don't have a clue as to what the asker's hardware is so speculating on the root problem is pretty fruitless!
That said; if it is a 2004ish PC, the odds are:
Its a single core processor (Whoops, even XP will jump up and fly with a dual core CPU)
The hard disk drive will probably be in the 50-80 MBps range (Compare that to the 2978MBps for his ram!)

The first thing I would do if it were here in my shop would be to check for garbage startup items and unnecessary software. Winpatrol is a great tool for this as it lets you disable the junk you don't need without the crippling effects of MSCONFIG. The second would be the options for a CPU upgrade. If it won't take a dual core, maybe a Pentium D 820 ($4.00) would crank things up more than anything else. The third would be to check the hard disk drive. (I have benched 186MBps on traditional HDD's and 504MBps on SSD's and more than tripling the speed of the filing cabinet is seriously noticeable).

Did anyone notice that the last thing would be a ram upgrade? In 2008, I loaded every program I had (Corel, Adobe, Intuit, Microsoft, and a few more) on an XP PC and got all the way up to 704MB of ram in use.