DDR2 vs DDR3 is largely irrelevant. P965 vs P43 is a large leap in features (probably power savings too, as you have been told); performance should not vary much, since it is mostly CPU/RAM-bound in this generation (motherboard has little effect). I would take a later-gen platform (P43/P45) any day. If you specifically want to reuse your existing DDR2 RAM, find a P43/P45 board with DDR2 slots.

Nemo1985 wrote:

I know old intel chipsets don't support high density modules and I doubt I will be able to have 8 gigs using just two dimms on ddr3

no problem using 4GB ddr3 modules on 43 chipset

Nemo1985 wrote:

also according to phil's ddr2 are faster than ddr3 at the same frequency.

if you go down with timings a lot, irl you wont feel the difference

Nemo1985 wrote:

I haven't been able to find any comparison between the 2 mb and random people says they are the same from the performance point of view,

they are

Nemo1985 wrote:

Which one I should prefer in your opinion?

the one you already have

Thank you both for the answers.
I was thinking the main problem with the old pc was that I was using it 24/7, firefox open with 30 tabs, stam, games and so on, that's why 4gb were not enough, in a retro pc I will not use so many apps so 4gb can be enough.
Also the P965 I tested it and I'm sure it's working, while the ddr3 gigabyte, well I will have to order it from China and my previous experience on it was bad because I received a non working mb...
I will also have to buy the ddr3 1600, but according to the QVL from gigabyte website it supports 2gb modules not 4...

Keep in mind, Gigabyte made that list when 4GB modules probably weren't avaible yet.
Just because it's not in QVL, doesn't mean it won't work on latest BIOS.
Iron rule for LGA 775 and 4GB module is 256MB/memory chip.
Meaning : 4GB module must be Dual Sided to even have a chance to work.
Same goes to DDR2 4GB (Intel compatible ones).

I rebuilt a Dell Vostro 230 for my mum. It had a Core 2 Duo - replaced that with a Q9650 Core 2 Quad. But the MB used DDR3, surprisingly. All of the spec sheets for that motherboard and system says 4GB max. It has 2 RAM slots. Well, being the curious IT guy I am, I figured I'd test that theory myself. Took 2 4GB DDR3 sticks I had and slapped them in there and BAM! 8GB working perfectly stable. I even ran a full MemTestx86 pass to verify it could see and use all 8GB. System has NO TROUBLE with Windows 10 doing daily workloads like what you describe.

Spec sheets don't always tell the whole story. Sometimes... you just gotta test things out for yourself. Best case scenario, it works. Worst case (when it comes to incompatible memory), the board doesn't POST and you just put your old memory back in.

By the way, maybe this is just me, but WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE PEOPLE DOING WITH 30 TABS OPEN IN A WEB BROWSER?! Like, seriously, I don't get it. If I have even 5, that's just weird and I start going back and closing the ones I don't need anymore. I police up my own memory. See, I actually REMEMBER back when Pentium IIs and Windows 98 were daily-drivers and the internet was via a slow-ass modem. I remember those days, and it has shaped who I am now.

Nemo1985 wrote:

Thank you both for the answers.
Also the P965 I tested it and I'm sure it's working, while the ddr3 gigabyte, well I will have to order it from China and my previous experience on it was bad because I received a non working mb...

Given this situation, I'd say on second thought that you should stay with the working board, unless you know of specific features you want, that the board/chipset doesn't have, and that you can get in P43/P45 board.

Nemo1985 wrote:

I will also have to buy the ddr3 1600, but according to the QVL from gigabyte website it supports 2gb modules not 4...

If you decide to go P43/P45 route after all, just get a DDR2 board and reuse your RAM. Why do you fixate on that one specific board?

FFXIhealer wrote:

By the way, maybe this is just me, but WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE PEOPLE DOING WITH 30 TABS OPEN IN A WEB BROWSER?!

fully agree, how someone could live below 100 tabs amazes me

Nemo1985 wrote:

while the ddr3 gigabyte, well I will have to order it from China and my previous experience on it was bad because I received a non working mb...

why china? you should be able to buy one locally, even I can sell you my P5G41T-M LX Asus if you are in central/eastern EU 😀

Nemo1985 wrote:

I will also have to buy the ddr3 1600, but according to the QVL from gigabyte website it supports 2gb modules not 4...

- you dont need special fast ddr3 ram, speed difference will me marginal vs 1333
- documentation is outdated

You mentioned browsing internet on this computer, is this meant to be your main PC? drop the idea of 775/771 and go for something modern, pimped vintage platform savings arent worth the price of comfort. Even something low budget like AMD Athlon 240GE will blow old Xeons out of the water, and $30 more Ryzen 3 2200G leave it in the dust.

fully agree, how someone could live below 100 tabs amazes me

300+ tabs master race reporting in =P Although I don't consider LGA775 as relevant for a modern web browsing. It's much easier to get something like AMD FX 8xxx series for a bargain price. Safer too, with all those Meltdown/Spectre shenanigans.

As far as open tabs go, the world is just divided between people that reuse the same tabs when browsing and people who always open a new tab and never close the old one. These are groups that often don't understand one another, but they are just different, equally legitimate ways of browsing the web (at least as long as enough RAM is available).

if you tweak it properly (latency and clock, playing with the FSB and dividers), DDR3 is likely superior, but with more default settings you can easily end with lower perf with DDR3, specially compared to DDR2 1066

also, I'm wondering, I think pretty much all DDR2 2GB modules are dual rank, while DDR3 2GB are often single rank?
dual should be a little faster, at least it is on more modern platforms.

dr_st wrote:

Nemo1985 wrote:

I will also have to buy the ddr3 1600, but according to the QVL from gigabyte website it supports 2gb modules not 4...

If you decide to go P43/P45 route after all, just get a DDR2 board and reuse your RAM. Why do you fixate on that one specific board?

Well that's a good question, I have used Asus p5q-e for years it was it was rated as one used for overclock, while mine it was walling the fsb at stupid low frequency, so this time i'm going with gigabyte. Second reason is... well it's the one phil's used in his 775\771 plataform.

rasz_pl wrote:

why china? you should be able to buy one locally, even I can sell you my P5G41T-M LX Asus if you are in central/eastern EU 😀

I live in Italy and I usually buy from Eastern Europe, in this case it's a price the main reason... 🤣
I probably didn't explain well, I won't use as primary pc, I did it for 10 years and I upgraded it because memory problems (4gb ddr2 were not enough)

SPBHM wrote:

if you tweak it properly (latency and clock, playing with the FSB and dividers), DDR3 is likely superior, but with more default settings you can easily end with lower perf with DDR3, specially compared to DDR2 1066

also, I'm wondering, I think pretty much all DDR2 2GB modules are dual rank, while DDR3 2GB are often single rank?
dual should be a little faster, at least it is on more modern platforms.

Thanks for the tip, I never messed with ddr3, I jumped from ddr2 to ddr4.

About the tabs queestions, I try to keep as few as I can, there are some tabs that are opened from more than a year, the problem is that the browswer starts to slow down (I have unlimited history), so I try to keep it as fast as I can (tabs get loaded only when opened the first time after a browser restart), in spite of this Waterfox is using now something like almost 4,5 gigs of memory 😲

Nemo1985 wrote:

Well that's a good question, I have used Asus p5q-e for years it was it was rated as one used for overclock, while mine it was walling the fsb at stupid low frequency, so this time i'm going with gigabyte.

Gigabyte also has plenty of P43/P45 DDR2 boards. How hard is it to use a search? Sheesh.

SPBHM wrote:

if you tweak it properly (latency and clock, playing with the FSB and dividers), DDR3 is likely superior, but with more default settings you can easily end with lower perf with DDR3, specially compared to DDR2 1066

also, I'm wondering, I think pretty much all DDR2 2GB modules are dual rank, while DDR3 2GB are often single rank?
dual should be a little faster, at least it is on more modern platforms.

You can't do 1066MHz on default settings (timings + frequency + voltage + proper FSB/Strap are required to be set manually). However even when set manually, there is a good chance it won't work at first boot (too little NB Voltage/too low Perf. level set by default BIOS - pretty common for 4x2GB setup).

The most important options for RAM performance on LGA 775 are identical in both cases (FSB Strap/Performance Level). Assuming you have proper MB for both 😉
DDR3 has better efficiency however, and if you compare 800MHz CL4 with 1600MHz CL8 - DDR3 will win in both latency and bandwidth.

Earlier (2009-2010) high performance 2GB DDR3 modules are usually Dual rank (like Elpida Hyper/BDSE). Worth mentioning is also fact that, dual rank 4GB modules should work in LGA 775.

Bump after years.
I was thinking to do a comparison between motherboards Intel, some with ddr2, one with ddr3 and 2 that are a mix of both, the aim of the comparison is to verify the performance difference between ddr2 and ddr3, also check the compatibility with ddr3 high density modules (4-8gb?).
About ddr2 I was thinking to use the ddr2 800 despite having some ddr2 1066, that's because my idea was to stick with jedec speeds but I could use 1066 ddr2 too if suggested.
I also want to check the compatibility of socket 771 cpu with vanilla and modified bios, since usually to support xeon cpus it's mandatory to remove the pentium 4 microcodes to check it as well.

Motherboards:
Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L rev. 1.0 DDR2
Asus P5Q Premium DDR2
Gigabyte GA-EP43T-S3L rev. 1.3 DDR3
ASRock P45TS DDR2-3
MSI P45-8D Memory Lover DDR2-3

Gigabyte motherboards use the p43 chipset (a stripped down version of the p45), while the others all use the p45.

For testing I was thinking to use one of those 3: Q6600 Q9550 E5450
I suppose there will be no problems with Q9550 but who knows, most probably the E5450 will need a modified bios.

About the benchmarks I was thinking to use the following: Cinebench 3DMark06 X3TC FEAR

Video card: GTX 770 seems powerful enough to get cpu limited scores provided that the video resolution is 1280x1024.

As always i'm open to suggestions.

I use a GA-EP43-UD3L with a E5450 on fsb 400 for my xp/win7. Works great.

bogdanpaulb wrote on 2023-04-02, 23:18:

I use a GA-EP43-UD3L with a E5450 on fsb 400 for my xp/win7. Works great.

with stock bios or one with added microcodes?

The one with added microcodes.

bogdanpaulb wrote on 2023-04-02, 23:22:

The one with added microcodes.

Well that's quite normal, but those bios usually drops the support to old pentium 4 cpus, once I did modified one myself.