memory advice please

Im thinking of updating my motherboard and CPU. My question is: can I use my existing DDR memory in a DDR2 board. This is a cost cutting measure as I want to get the best board and CPU with limited funds (and upgrade the memory at a later date).

edit... Also, will an AM2 CPU work on an AM2+ board?

This post has been edited by jiggiwiddit: Aug 6 2008, 07:51 PM

About your first question:
I don't think the DDR memory will fit in the DDR2 memory slots.

About your second question:
Sorry, can't help you there.

1)No DDR1 will not fit in a DDR2 Motherboard.

Altho DDR2 is dirt cheap these days ,i just bought 4gb of corsair for £58 ,a decent 2gb kit should be only £30/40 ish.

2)Yes an AM2 cpu will work in an AM2+ board so you could keep existing cpu until u can afford to upgrade to a phenom or similar.

This post has been edited by xu: Aug 6 2008, 09:36 PM

AM2+ is backward compatible with AM2.

Theoretically AM2+ procs work on AM2 mobos, but AMD and mobo manufacturers don't see eye to eye on that, so I wouldn't risk it without checking the proc compatibility page of the mobo on the manufacturer's site.

You can't use DDR in DDR2 sockets as they are different sockets.

Keep in mind that AM2 and AM2+ mobos usually only have one IDE connector (max 2 devices). I settled for an asus m2nE sli about 6 months ago for that reason alone.

Thanks for the quick advice guys. Armed with this info I have ordered the following from Tekheads...

AMD Athlon 64 LE-1640 2.6GHz 1MB Energy Efficient 45W (Socket AM2) - Retail with Fan

Asus M2N-VM HDMI Vid/Lan/Sound (Socket AM2+) mATX Motherboard (Nvidia 7000 Series onboard graphics)

Total- £70.79 inc VAT + shipping

I have £60ish left for 4GB of DDR2 memory, just havn't decided where to order it from yet

Next time I have some spare money Im getting a decent Phenom quadcore or a PCI graphics card.
My current PC has
64Athlon 3000+ @ 2.2GB (overclocked 10%)
Asus k8n mobo
Radeon 9250 AGP graphics card
Audigy2 ZS
1.5GB ddr RAM
120GB SATA
320GB IDE

I reckon I now have much more scope for future upgrading and Ive not had to shell out too much pennies to get here

Again... many thanks

CPU and mobo arrived today and your'e right about one IDE channel. I'll use this for my DVD burners (glad Ive got a SATA for the OS). Also, ordered Some memory from Aria... GEIL 4GB PC2-6400 C5 Black Dragon (2x2GB) £58.63 inc VAT & delivery.



This post has been edited by jiggiwiddit: Aug 12 2008, 07:23 AM

congrats ,hope it all works ok and u enjoy testing all the new goodies out

Ok... the memory arrived yesterday and I duly set about changing all the hardware. To my delight, the spare OS (winXP pro SP2) on the SATA booted up first time, no problems, quick and stable. I then installed the drivers that were bundled with the MOBO. I now have no windows audio from the speakers. I do get sound from the 3D test function in the onboard audio. I think this is because I previously had a PCI soundcard installed when I installed the backup OS. Ive tried updating the drivers from Windows update and the XP disc but it cant find a better driver. Im hoping theres a simple solution to this or Ive overlooked something.

if its the same win install u ran previously ,make sure in control panl that the new scard is selected for output in the dropdown boxe/s ,it may still be set to the pci card even tho its not actually there ,i assume its drivers are tho ,windows might still think that the pci card is the systems main scoundcard.

This is what I was thinking xu but everything in the control panel seemed ok. Im not sure what was wrong with the bundled drivers that came with the mobo but the ones that I d/loaded from the Asus support site worked a treat, Ive got windows sound now and all seems fine

Thanks to all for input

If you don't install a 64bit Windows or a usefull OS don't bother getting more then 3.3gb memory

Yep, Im only getting 2.8gb useable at the moment. Im a bit reluctant to install a 64bit version of XP incase my license key dosent work with it.