DDR2 RAM for "New" Old Build

[RyanMacRocks]

I'm currently looking to build a cheap gaming PC for my friend, and decided to go with the socket 775 route. Picked up a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L for $40, along with a $10 case. I am going to attempt the socket 771 to 775 mod which basically lets you put a Xeon x5460 (equivalent of the qx9650 but socket 771) in a socket 775 motherboard. I also might get a GTX 950 I found for $100 on Craigslist (not as good of a deal as my $85 7970, but whatever ). Anyways, to the point, I have been trying to find some DDR2 RAM on eBay (none on Craigslist atm) but everything is just so expensive...especially since I would prefer to get 1066 MHz sticks to allow for better potential overclocking. Does anybody know of any sites or ways to get a deal on some DDR2? Right now it seems to be around 2x-3x the price of DDR3 and DDR4...ugh. Any build suggestions are welcome too.

[Stardar1]

4 minutes ago, RyanMacRocks said:

I'm currently looking to build a cheap gaming PC for my friend, and decided to go with the socket 775 route. Picked up a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L for $40, along with a $10 case. I am going to attempt the socket 771 to 775 mod which basically lets you put a Xeon x5460 (equivalent of the qx9650 but socket 771) in a socket 775 motherboard. I also might get a GTX 950 I found for $100 on Craigslist (not as good of a deal as my $85 7970, but whatever ). Anyways, to the point, I have been trying to find some DDR2 RAM on eBay (none on Craigslist atm) but everything is just so expensive...especially since I would prefer to get 1066 MHz sticks to allow for better potential overclocking. Does anybody know of any sites or ways to get a deal on some DDR2? Right now it seems to be around 2x-3x the price of DDR3 and DDR4...ugh. Any build suggestions are welcome too.

I happen to be in possession of a 4x2GB kit of kingston DDR2 RAM that I would be happy to hook you up with. 

 

Not sure as to its speed, as I received it second hand, though I have tested it. 

[RyanMacRocks]

Just now, Stardar1 said:

I happen to be in possession of a 4x2GB kit of kingston DDR2 RAM that I would be happy to hook you up with. 

 

Not sure as to its speed, as I received it second hand, though I have tested it. 

Ok, if you could check the speed, I would consider it. How much would you want for it?

[Aereldor]

Ask the guy who sold you the motherboard. Chances are it was part of an operational system once and he still has the RAM.

However, 4GB sticks of DDR2 are available only in ECC form, and those are expensive. The largest capacity consumer DDR2 sticks were 2GB, so you'll need four RAM slots or an LGA775 DDR3 board.

[Stardar1]

1 minute ago, RyanMacRocks said:

Ok, if you could check the speed, I would consider it. How much would you want for it?

Shipping. 

 

I cannot check the speed, nor get it to you for a little while though (will explain in a PM)

[RyanMacRocks]

Just now, Aereldor said:

Ask the guy who sold you the motherboard. Chances are it was part of an operational system once and he still has the RAM.

However, 4GB sticks of DDR2 are available only in ECC form, and those are expensive. The largest capacity consumer DDR2 sticks were 2GB, so you'll need four RAM slots or an LGA775 DDR3 board.

Bought the motherboard from a store that sells surplus computer components, etc. They have RAM, but I believe only 667 MHz and they wanted $39 for two 2 GB sticks. Also, I have 4 RAM slots.

[Aereldor]

10 minutes ago, RyanMacRocks said:

Bought the motherboard from a store that sells surplus computer components, etc. They have RAM, but I believe only 667 MHz and they wanted $39 for two 2 GB sticks. Also, I have 4 RAM slots.

They wanted $39 for two 2GB sticks? 

I'm having a hard time believing them that. Put an old boot on their desk and tell them it's worth $60 by itself.

[Steel_Wind]

I am in the midst of doing exactly this for a "Why Not Project" , albeit with considerably more Wango-Zee-Tango.
The solution to your Craigslist/Kijiji stupidly expensive RAM problem? eBay it from China with free shipping!

I invite you to look at the three following products for your Xeon Based Modded 771>775 Retro Scrapyard War PC:
 

 

• New 8GB KIT (4X2GB) PC2-6400 DDR2-800MHz 240pin Unbuffered DIMM Dekstop Memory - $38.66 USD - Free Shipping http://www.ebay.ca/itm/281705992229 (no, this is not AMD ram)
• PCI-E Express SATA3 SATA3.0 6Gb/s eSATA SATA III Card w/SATA Data Cable ASM1061 - $9.94 USD - Free Shipping http://www.ebay.ca/itm/261928859357
• 5Gbps USB3.0PCI-E Switch to USB3.0 PCI-E Expansion Riser Card USB 3.04 Port - $10.29 USD - Free Shipping http://www.ebay.ca/itm/391409713752

So for less than $60 USD, you upgrade your 771 modded Xeon build to 8 gigs of overclockable RAM and add Sata III/6Gb/s performance to a pair of drives to leverage a cheap-ass SSD and 1TB Blue combo for your rig and throw in some USB 3.0 too (because, for $10? Why not?).

If your aim is to build something on a budget that is still reasonably capable, that's how you do it. 

The most extreme option to make RAM cheap and plentiful is to find an Asus ROG Striker II Extreme Mobo which has support for DDR3, and mondo Crossfire/SLI but the cost on those 775 Mobos is ridiculously high unless you are extremely lucky. (So high. you might as well just go full on Z170). 

 

Except those are not retro, or particularly cheap either.

 

My guess is that the OP has been inspired by some of the retro builds on the "Tech Yes City" Youtube channel? If not, you should definitely check that channel out. Very inspiring. (And for the record, cleaning your mobo with brake parts cleaner as shown on "Tech Yes City" totally works and it works very well. Ignore the portents of doom elsewhere on the internet on this subject.  

 

 

[PooPipeBoy]

Sounds like you're building a system that will be very similar to my Xeon gaming system.

I found the same thing with DDR2 memory, it's just stupidly-overpriced considering how old it is.

Try to aim for 8GB of DDR2 800MHz RAM, because 800MHz seems to be the sweet spot for even any semblance of value.

Most LGA775 motherboards only support a maximum 8GB of RAM, so there's not much of a problem if you end up filling all four memory slots.

[Steel_Wind]

On 4/12/2016 at 10:07 PM, Aereldor said:

Ask the guy who sold you the motherboard. Chances are it was part of an operational system once and he still has the RAM.

However, 4GB sticks of DDR2 are available only in ECC form, and those are expensive. The largest capacity consumer DDR2 sticks were 2GB, so you'll need four RAM slots or an LGA775 DDR3 board.

That's not true. DDR2 came in Non-ECC, unbuffered versions in 2GB modules. There are even some 4GB non-ECC non-buffered sticks out there, too. Admittedly, 4GB modules are very hard to find though. Still, if you do, the Asus P5QL Pro mobo (a very common mainstream 775 mobo) supports 16GB of non-ECC, unbuffered ram in 4 DIMM slots, too. That and its PCIEx 2.0 (16) port is the reason the P5QL Pro remains relatively high in price in the used 775 mobo market ($70-$80 on eBay). 

But most sellers don't know this so you can easily find P5QL Pro mobos for dirt cheap with old Core 2 Duos in them on Craigslist.

 

The link above has 8GB on 4 x 2GB sticks for cheap.

This one is for Intel at 4GB for a stick. $55 a stick though.  I am sure there are others for cheaper, but it was always expensive and not much of it has ever hit the used market on the Intel side. 4GB DDR2 intel modules remain relevant and are hard to replace. (Cheap as hell on the AMD side though)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-4GB-PC2-6400U-DDR2-800-MHZ-240pin-DIMM-Desktop-Memory-Ram-For-Intel-/111734756859?hash=item1a03e915fb:g:xXsAAOSw3ydVwJJc 

[Aereldor]

6 hours ago, Steel_Wind said:

-snip-

Alright, well I suppose I should correct myself- they're very hard to find. I've never managed to find a 4GB stick of non-ECC DDR2 memory, and I have looked. 

 

Also, for $55 a stick, you could probably pick up Biostar's cheap B85 board and a single 8GB stick of DDR3 RAM, so I don't know whether it's a viable option.

 

Thanks for putting me onto this, though. At least I have something to refer to people looking to upgrade Core 2 Quad systems with no more than 2 RAM slots.

[Steel_Wind]

13 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

Also, for $55 a stick, you could probably pick up Biostar's cheap B85 board and a single 8GB stick of DDR3 RAM, so I don't know whether it's a viable option.

I don't think the Biostar is an option for the OP or the retro mod squad. I have searched and was unable to confirm any B85 chipset based mobo supporting the LGA 771 to 775 mod so that it can run a Xeon (and then OC the hell out of it). That's the central theme around all this puttering about with old Core 2 Duo mobos.  The entire point of this retro stuff is to get an older mobo you already own sitting on a shelf or in an old Antec case in your basement to run a cheap-ass $30 Xeon Quad core at 4.0 - 4.2GHz.  

[Aereldor]

5 minutes ago, Steel_Wind said:

I don't think the Biostar is an option for the OP or the retro mod squad. I have searched and was unable to confirm any B85 chipset based mobo supporting the LGA 771 to 775 mod so that it can run a Xeon (and then OC the hell out of it). That's the central theme around all this puttering about with old Core 2 Duo mobos.  The entire point of this retro stuff is to get an older mobo you already own sitting on a shelf or in an old Antec case in your basement to run a cheap-ass $30 Xeon Quad core at 4.0 - 4.2GHz.  

I didn't mean a B85 board supporting the LGA 771 and 775 platforms- those do not exist, and are actually about 5 architecture generations removed from them. The B85 chipset is restricted to the LGA1150 platform and the Haswell CPUs that come with it, or in some cases, Broadwell with a BIOS update.

I was referring to moving to a new platform; the LGA 1150 platform, to be precise, with something like a Pentium G3258 or even a Celeron G1840 (which is surprisingly capable). This would pertain to function over fancy, but it depends on what you want to do. 

I don't know a ton about retro modding, but like I said, while the 4GB sticks of non-ECC DDR2 memory are useful, they're expensive, and I don't yet know whether mainstream motherbaords with two RAM slots even support 4GB sticks (do they?). If your intention is to upgrade an old system at any cost, sure, go for it. However, if your aim is to build the best PC for your buck, there's a point where it doesn't make sense to throw down that much for small upgrades to antiquated hardware.

[Tech Deals]

On 4/12/2016 at 9:00 PM, RyanMacRocks said:

I'm currently looking to build a cheap gaming PC for my friend, and decided to go with the socket 775 route. Picked up a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L for $40, along with a $10 case. I am going to attempt the socket 771 to 775 mod which basically lets you put a Xeon x5460 (equivalent of the qx9650 but socket 771) in a socket 775 motherboard. I also might get a GTX 950 I found for $100 on Craigslist (not as good of a deal as my $85 7970, but whatever ).

Question for all the retro folks...

 

What do you see as the advantage of the x5460 modded vs something newer such as a H81 motherboard for $40 and a G3258 for $70 overclocked to 4.0+ GHz?

 

The price isn't that much different and you're on a massively newer platform.  The use of cheaper DDR3 may well cancel out the higher CPU price.

 

Yes, dual core only, but for gaming, it works for the most part.

 

Just thinking out loud...

[Steel_Wind]

The Xeon 771 > 775 builds are focused on two things, really:

 

Repurposing a mobo you already own and therefore don't have to buy;

If possible, repurposing RAM you already own and don't have to buy

All of which then leverages: getting 4GHz-4.2GHz performance out of a Xeon for $30 and thus, true quad core performance for $30. A good Xeon overclock is not quite as good as a 2500K/2600k at stock, far more in line with an i7-920 for performance.

 

And really, that's it. If you can avoid the expense of a Mobo and acquire all the rest (Xeon CPU, SATA III, USB 3.0 card)  for ~$50? AWESOME

 

If you need to add 8 gigs of RAM for another $40? Still pretty awesome.

If you don't have this, you can get it of Craigslist quite often for a song. So that's awesome too.
 

Then it comes down to your GPU card, as always.

All while reviving old tech in a satisfying way that obtains remarkably decent performance not only in gaming but in other processor intensive tasks (Disc ripping and video encoding re-encoding, principally).

 

I would not deny the hobbyist "because it's there" appeal of the 771>775 upgrades. This is as much just "to do it" and tinker about as it is a rational system build in my case. 

[RyanMacRocks]

18 hours ago, Steel_Wind said:

I am in the midst of doing exactly this for a "Why Not Project" , albeit with considerably more Wango-Zee-Tango.
The solution to your Craigslist/Kijiji stupidly expensive RAM problem? eBay it from China with free shipping!

I invite you to look at the three following products for your Xeon Based Modded 771>775 Retro Scrapyard War PC:
 

 

• New 8GB KIT (4X2GB) PC2-6400 DDR2-800MHz 240pin Unbuffered DIMM Dekstop Memory - $38.66 USD - Free Shipping http://www.ebay.ca/itm/281705992229 (no, this is not AMD ram)
• PCI-E Express SATA3 SATA3.0 6Gb/s eSATA SATA III Card w/SATA Data Cable ASM1061 - $9.94 USD - Free Shipping http://www.ebay.ca/itm/261928859357
• 5Gbps USB3.0PCI-E Switch to USB3.0 PCI-E Expansion Riser Card USB 3.04 Port - $10.29 USD - Free Shipping http://www.ebay.ca/itm/391409713752

So for less than $60 USD, you upgrade your 771 modded Xeon build to 8 gigs of overclockable RAM and add Sata III/6Gb/s performance to a pair of drives to leverage a cheap-ass SSD and 1TB Blue combo for your rig and throw in some USB 3.0 too (because, for $10? Why not?).

If your aim is to build something on a budget that is still reasonably capable, that's how you do it. 

The most extreme option to make RAM cheap and plentiful is to find an Asus ROG Striker II Extreme Mobo which has support for DDR3, and mondo Crossfire/SLI but the cost on those 775 Mobos is ridiculously high unless you are extremely lucky. (So high. you might as well just go full on Z170). 

 

Except those are not retro, or particularly cheap either.

 

My guess is that the OP has been inspired by some of the retro builds on the "Tech Yes City" Youtube channel? If not, you should definitely check that channel out. Very inspiring. (And for the record, cleaning your mobo with brake parts cleaner as shown on "Tech Yes City" totally works and it works very well. Ignore the portents of doom elsewhere on the internet on this subject.  

 

 

 

Thanks, I might consider getting the sata 3 and usb 3 cards. As for the RAM, Stardar1 offered to ship me some he had lying around, so I will be using that, however thanks for the eBay link, I definitely would have used that otherwise. And yes, I did get the idea from Tech Yes City :). Great YouTube channel.

[RyanMacRocks]

12 hours ago, Aereldor said:

I didn't mean a B85 board supporting the LGA 771 and 775 platforms- those do not exist, and are actually about 5 architecture generations removed from them. The B85 chipset is restricted to the LGA1150 platform and the Haswell CPUs that come with it, or in some cases, Broadwell with a BIOS update.

I was referring to moving to a new platform; the LGA 1150 platform, to be precise, with something like a Pentium G3258 or even a Celeron G1840 (which is surprisingly capable). This would pertain to function over fancy, but it depends on what you want to do. 

I don't know a ton about retro modding, but like I said, while the 4GB sticks of non-ECC DDR2 memory are useful, they're expensive, and I don't yet know whether mainstream motherbaords with two RAM slots even support 4GB sticks (do they?). If your intention is to upgrade an old system at any cost, sure, go for it. However, if your aim is to build the best PC for your buck, there's a point where it doesn't make sense to throw down that much for small upgrades to antiquated hardware.

 

4 hours ago, Tech Deals said:

Question for all the retro folks...

 

What do you see as the advantage of the x5460 modded vs something newer such as a H81 motherboard for $40 and a G3258 for $70 overclocked to 4.0+ GHz?

 

The price isn't that much different and you're on a massively newer platform.  The use of cheaper DDR3 may well cancel out the higher CPU price.

 

Yes, dual core only, but for gaming, it works for the most part.

 

Just thinking out loud...

Thanks for your input, this is a PC I am building for a friend and considered using an i3 6100 or G3258, but a lot of games now have trouble running on a dual-core (even if it gets a similar benchmark score), I'm assuming just because the game was optimized for 4 cores, such as GTA V or Far Cry 4. The first system I built had a G3420 at 3.2 GHz (bought it just before the G3258 came out) and I remember watching Scrapyard Wars Season 1 and wishing I had gone that route instead, mainly because I was playing a lot of GTA V at the time and my G3420 could barely hold a stuttey 30 FPS (My HD 5870 was only at 50%). Also, I enjoy the tinkering :).

3 hours ago, Steel_Wind said:

The Xeon 771 > 775 builds are focused on two things, really:

 

Repurposing a mobo you already own and therefore don't have to buy;

If possible, repurposing RAM you already own and don't have to buy

All of which then leverages: getting 4GHz-4.2GHz performance out of a Xeon for $30 and thus, true quad core performance for $30. A good Xeon overclock is not quite as good as a 2500K/2600k at stock, far more in line with an i7-920 for performance.

 

And really, that's it. If you can avoid the expense of a Mobo and acquire all the rest (Xeon CPU, SATA III, USB 3.0 card)  for ~$50? AWESOME

 

If you need to add 8 gigs of RAM for another $40? Still pretty awesome.

If you don't have this, you can get it of Craigslist quite often for a song. So that's awesome too.
 

Then it comes down to your GPU card, as always.

All while reviving old tech in a satisfying way that obtains remarkably decent performance not only in gaming but in other processor intensive tasks (Disc ripping and video encoding re-encoding, principally).

 

I would not deny the hobbyist "because it's there" appeal of the 771>775 upgrades. This is as much just "to do it" and tinker about as it is a rational system build in my case. 

 

[harrynowl]

Just a heads up the 2GB sticks plain suck for overclocking.

 

Your best bet is crucial ballistix for good ICs  if you buy dominators you often end up with qimonda poo 

[Tech Deals]

3 hours ago, Steel_Wind said:

The Xeon 771 > 775 builds are focused on two things, really:

 

Repurposing a mobo you already own and therefore don't have to buy;

If possible, repurposing RAM you already own and don't have to buy

All of which then leverages: getting 4GHz-4.2GHz performance out of a Xeon for $30 and thus, true quad core performance for $30. A good Xeon overclock is not quite as good as a 2500K/2600k at stock, far more in line with an i7-920 for performance.

 

--- snip ---

I would not deny the hobbyist "because it's there" appeal of the 771>775 upgrades. This is as much just "to do it" and tinker about as it is a rational system build in my case. 

Thank you, interesting thoughts...

 

I'm trying to mentally reconcile the cost and pro/cons of this, vs. spending slightly more for something brand new that doesn't require all that.

 

Your last point is a separate factor, I get the appeal of tinkering, I am not sure it goes into a pro/con more than another category...

 

Thinking out loud here:

 

Would an overclocked Core2Quad be faster than a modern dual core chip running at similar speeds?  How about an i3-6100?

 

Why that one?  The HD 530 on it is now actually decent for gaming.  Not as good as the deal from the OP on the GTX 950, but compared to a lot of cheap used options, not bad either.

 

i3-6100 + H110 + 8GB DDR3 = $200 give or take

 

If you use that as it is, with the HD 530 GPU, you can actually play quite a few games without having to do anything else to it.

 

Is that, 2 core, 4 threads, 3.7GHz, faster or slower for gaming than a Core2Quad overclocked to 3.7GHz running an older GPU?

 

Then the question becomes, power consumption.  Maybe it is just me, but I've become concerned recently about the power that all my electronic stuff uses.  The cost is minor, per item, but it adds up and it increases my energy footprint.

 

Compare that to the Core2Quad, maybe $30 for the CPU, $40 for the motherboard, $40 for the RAM, plus a graphics card of some kind, plus a cooling solution.  That seems like it'll end up being about $200, give or take, unless you already have some of those items.

 

---

 

Side note:

 

i3-4170 - 3.7GHz - $320

http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspiron-3847-i3847-6162BK-Desktop/dp/B010DODUM2

 

For that price you get a complete computer with Windows 10 ready to plug in and use.  Drop that GTX 950 card in there and you're off to the races.

 

More expensive perhaps than a tinkered together old machine, but for $320, meh.  The case for it is compelling I think.