I'd go with cas2 PC3500 for the most OC action you can get out of a locked CPU and still have the best bandwidth possible.
That said I'd look into some Mushkin lvl 2 for it.
Which would be the best stock speed ram. If i didn't missread completly the msi board has been tested to work with crucial ram. Would that work? Not everyone is onto oc:ing.
Bud's...Crucial doesn't really offer much in the way of performance ram.
For stock speed, never going to OC I'd go with the lowest latency PC3200 I could afford.
I suggested the PC3500 for OC'ing headroom
So crucial is no good then. Will it really be that much of a difference i mean for someone like you who prolly are used to oc:ing modern cpus sure, but to me who are running a p2 i doubt it. I just want a fast stable rig. I don't think that high latency ram will bother me that much.
As for oc:ing well i've had way to much experience with murphy and his law in the past so i don't want to oc my next rig. That's why i've been looking at stable, not neccecerly fast but not to expensive ram. From what i've learned crucial fits that description.
Komplett.se has several upgrade kits and in the one containing an A64 they use corsair value ram. Would you feel better if i used that. It should be noted that i'm not sure yet whether or not to go 64bit but whatever ram i get i'll still use it regardless of cpu type.
The Athlon 64 is very sensitive to what you use in memory. Read your motherboard manufacturers specifications and see what they recommend, then scope your purchasing decison based on that. If you don't...
You and Mr Blue Screen of Death will become good friends
Most 64 board manufacturers seem to have had best results with Mushkin Level I or II.
I never said it was no good, I said that it wasn't enthusiast targeted. They only offer JDEC approved memory...all the stock speeds.
Micron makes some of the best memory around but it's a bit conervative as far as overclocking goes. That's all I meant. I think I had originally suggested Mushkin lvl II
Yea i get that way when i hear arguments that between the lines seems to be saying that computers can't run stock. Like there was some law forbidding it. Everytime i hear it i think of mediamans editorial on the locking of cpu:s and the discussion about it. But i don't get angry easily and try to stay cool it's just so hard when i hear all these stories of people willing to risk their costly computerparts just to squeeze out a little bit of speed from it. I can understand that saving money by getting the most out of stuff can be tempting but for me stability is more important.
The Athlon 64 is very sensitive to what you use in memory. Read your motherboard manufacturers specifications and see what they recommend, then scope your purchasing decison based on that. If you don't...
You and Mr Blue Screen of Death will become good friends
I don't doubt that. Besides since money prolly will keep being short for some time i think i'll wait for second gen cards as omega has suggested. According to msi their board should run with both ecc and none ecc crucial/micro ram. If that's true and will stay true for next gen mobos then for stock performence that's what i'm getting.
Most 64 board manufacturers seem to have had best results with Mushkin Level I or II.
Considering the price of those rams that doesn't surprice me. But it's just to expensive for me. BTW i doubt that i firm like Komplett would reccomend a ram without testing it first.
I never said it was no good, I said that it wasn't enthusiast targeted. They only offer JDEC approved memory...all the stock speeds.
Micron makes some of the best memory around but it's a bit conervative as far as overclocking goes. That's all I meant. I think I had originally suggested Mushkin lvl II
Yea you did suggest mushkin but since overclocking isn't for me, neither is the ram. So which ram would work for stock speeds and not be to expensive. Can someone please test that and report the result in the thread started by mediaman.
I'm sorry if this turned out to sound to negative. That wasn't my intension.
Yea i get that way when i hear arguments that between the lines seems to be saying that computers can't run stock. Like there was some law forbidding it. Everytime i hear it i think of mediamans editorial on the locking of cpu:s and the discussion about it. But i don't get angry easily and try to stay cool it's just so hard when i hear all these stories of people willing to risk their costly computerparts just to squeeze out a little bit of speed from it. I can understand that saving money by getting the most out of stuff can be tempting but for me stability is more important.
I'm sorry if this turned out to sound to negative. That wasn't my intension.
I think you have misunderstood the point of my post (and it's intention)
My post was purely for information.. as an Athlon 64 user myself. I have experienced first hand the problems that can occur when you try to "cheat the system". The A64 is unforgiving
I have not and do not intend to overclock my A64 (and I don't often overclock my systems anyway). It's horses for courses. Some of us live for benchmarks, some of us don't feel the need.
Well, if you don't want to OC then go with what the mobo manf. suggests and be happy. Lower latencies are apt to cause instability so that's why the stock ram is generally recommended to be cas 2.5 or cas 3 with the latencies to be left at "by spd".
As far as I'm concerned, if I'm going to build a pc and use parts that are lower speed because the high speed parts aren't realistically affordable then I'm going to OC it to get the performance equivelent to what I couldn't afford and laugh at the companies for being too concerned about a profit.
If I wasn't going to OC I'd just run out and buy a mainstream vendors higher end pc that offers faster stuff for the same price I can get slower stuff for.
Thanks for letting me vent this. Now i'll wait for money and second gen cards and see what happens. Somewhere deep inside me i feel strongly against oems so i'm not gonna buy one even if the price might be better. I wanna build my own stuff. My current ram will now be corsair value. Unless i hear to many bad things about the new cards especially their compatibility with different ram i'll go with that. Since i want stability above all i'm sticking with 32-bit till someone can show me a stable 64-bit mobo combo.
Since there are discussions about this in the forum i'll keep my eyes open for recommendations.
Forget alot of what you know about components when you are building an A64/FX/Opteron rig. You can't just use X memory, X card and X blah and expect to get X performance out of it.
Ok so that's what you meant. Well that much i have understood hence why i did look at the list of reccomended ram for the board while trying to find on that suited both the board and me. I didn't want to use something that wasn't on the list. Now i'm calling it quits since i think i know what ram to get. No use in arguing since i don't think i have anything to argue about.
Tell me one thing. There are several members on this forum with A64 systems of some sort yet noone has posted in the thread by mediaman. If that would be done then questions about ram wouldn't have to be made. Just a thought.
My take on the whole matter is a bit differant then others here. I run teh msi-k8 dual 240 opteron. There is no voltage or OC'ing on this board of any kind.
As long as I run registered ddr any stick I have put in so far thats pc2700 or below has been 100 percent rock solid. I can mix and match from differant manufactureres and differant sizes and nothing bothers it... In fact the dual msi-k8 has never ever BSOD'd once, as long as its registered ddr. I am sure the game changes radically with just a athlon64 and unbufered ddr.But I have run 64 and 32 bit XP and win2k3 and jacked the poor fellows ram all around but if its registered so far it just eats it up.
I have never had a more stable board or platform in my life, and I've been doing this for 20+ years anyway. You don't have to push the envelope for speed and instability to enjoy this platform. mine runs 24/7 and is so sweet I could almost cry. (grin)
This stuff doesnt have to cost a fortune. The 256mb pieces I buy run 20 to 23 bucks a pop and the 512mb stsicks run 45 to 55 bucks a pop. You can pay way way more for stuff to OC but if all you want is stable as a rock and you can run reg pc2100 then you can do this cheap.
I paid < $250 for the dual opteron board. under $140 for each 240 opteron.
You can add 1gb of reg pc2100 for under $100 if you scarf around.
You don't HAVE to run $400 cpu's or $400 memory to get in the game now IF you don't mind scarfing around for parts and the goal is a rock solid system today you can upgrade later...
I have used like six differant brands. Nothing thats registered has not worked. Both HP and IBM branded ram. Thats Infineon and Micron. Crucial and thats Micron. Smart Modular. Buffalo. etc..
As long as the motherboardor in this case the cpu takes registered pc2100 memory THATS the key. Not the brand. You can get single socket 940 motherboards for around 100 bucks. The opteron is socket 940 and has the memory controller built in so I know it takes registered memory. The non fx athlon 64 fits a differant socket and doesnt use registered memory though so be careful. If you get a regular athlon 64 and your not OC'ing it then just use EXACTLY what the manufacturer recomends is the safe way to go.
So socket 940 is less sensetive to which memory you have as long as it's registered than socket 754. Luckly crucial/micron are on the list so that would be safe.
The memory controller is built into the opterons. The biggest problem is trying to go to fast as not all the opterons can run with memory faster then pc2700.
But as long as you just stick with memory on the approved list for the motherboard in question with normal athlon 64's you won't have trouble either. When your pushing the top end and OC'ing and trying toi wring the last ounce of performance out of a rig... thats where the memory choice is both more critical and pricey also. As you have obviously found.
Yea i know that but i wondered why you seemed to claim that only opterons/fx have built in memory controller, that's all. I know it's a different socket and that A64 doesn't need reg, ecc ram.
I run Corsair XMS Registered ECC PC3200 Low Latency (CAS2) in my dual Opteron system. I run 248 Opterons, though I believe I've read that the 246 Opterons also support DDR400.
My motherboard is an MSI K8T Master2-FAR, and its only issue is that it doesn't seem to like Folding. I'm pretty sure it's BIOS thing though and MSI will have a fix out sometime. Other than that, it's an excellent machine and the only times I've BSOD'd it were from flaky software.
I might overclock the graphics card, but I'm not going to play with the possibility of screwing up a pair of $1k processors.
yep the 246's also do an actuyally a lot of the newer ones do also if you check out the exact cpu with cpu-z or another utility. A bunch of guys at 2cpu.com with other revisons of the opteron even slow ones can deal with faster memory.
my 240's didn't like it. (grin) But I paid about half for both my cpu's as single 248's cost new. Or less.... (grin) My pair ran like 300 bucks total.
Comments
That said I'd look into some Mushkin lvl 2 for it.
which one should I get?
For stock speed, never going to OC I'd go with the lowest latency PC3200 I could afford.
I suggested the PC3500 for OC'ing headroom
As for oc:ing well i've had way to much experience with murphy and his law in the past so i don't want to oc my next rig. That's why i've been looking at stable, not neccecerly fast but not to expensive ram. From what i've learned crucial fits that description.
Komplett.se has several upgrade kits and in the one containing an A64 they use corsair value ram. Would you feel better if i used that. It should be noted that i'm not sure yet whether or not to go 64bit but whatever ram i get i'll still use it regardless of cpu type.
The Athlon 64 is very sensitive to what you use in memory. Read your motherboard manufacturers specifications and see what they recommend, then scope your purchasing decison based on that. If you don't...
You and Mr Blue Screen of Death will become good friends
Most 64 board manufacturers seem to have had best results with Mushkin Level I or II.
Micron makes some of the best memory around but it's a bit conervative as far as overclocking goes. That's all I meant.
Yea i get that way when i hear arguments that between the lines seems to be saying that computers can't run stock. Like there was some law forbidding it. Everytime i hear it i think of mediamans editorial on the locking of cpu:s and the discussion about it. But i don't get angry easily and try to stay cool it's just so hard when i hear all these stories of people willing to risk their costly computerparts just to squeeze out a little bit of speed from it. I can understand that saving money by getting the most out of stuff can be tempting but for me stability is more important.
I don't doubt that. Besides since money prolly will keep being short for some time i think i'll wait for second gen cards as omega has suggested. According to msi their board should run with both ecc and none ecc crucial/micro ram. If that's true and will stay true for next gen mobos then for stock performence that's what i'm getting.
Considering the price of those rams that doesn't surprice me. But it's just to expensive for me. BTW i doubt that i firm like Komplett would reccomend a ram without testing it first.
Yea you did suggest mushkin but since overclocking isn't for me, neither is the ram. So which ram would work for stock speeds and not be to expensive. Can someone please test that and report the result in the thread started by mediaman.
I'm sorry if this turned out to sound to negative. That wasn't my intension.
I think you have misunderstood the point of my post (and it's intention)
My post was purely for information.. as an Athlon 64 user myself. I have experienced first hand the problems that can occur when you try to "cheat the system". The A64 is unforgiving
I have not and do not intend to overclock my A64 (and I don't often overclock my systems anyway). It's horses for courses. Some of us live for benchmarks, some of us don't feel the need.
As far as I'm concerned, if I'm going to build a pc and use parts that are lower speed because the high speed parts aren't realistically affordable then I'm going to OC it to get the performance equivelent to what I couldn't afford and laugh at the companies for being too concerned about a profit.
If I wasn't going to OC I'd just run out and buy a mainstream vendors higher end pc that offers faster stuff for the same price I can get slower stuff for.
Since there are discussions about this in the forum i'll keep my eyes open for recommendations.
EO
What Im trying to say is this:
Forget alot of what you know about components when you are building an A64/FX/Opteron rig. You can't just use X memory, X card and X blah and expect to get X performance out of it.
I think that about covers it
Tell me one thing. There are several members on this forum with A64 systems of some sort yet noone has posted in the thread by mediaman. If that would be done then questions about ram wouldn't have to be made. Just a thought.
As long as I run registered ddr any stick I have put in so far thats pc2700 or below has been 100 percent rock solid. I can mix and match from differant manufactureres and differant sizes and nothing bothers it... In fact the dual msi-k8 has never ever BSOD'd once, as long as its registered ddr. I am sure the game changes radically with just a athlon64 and unbufered ddr.But I have run 64 and 32 bit XP and win2k3 and jacked the poor fellows ram all around but if its registered so far it just eats it up.
I have never had a more stable board or platform in my life, and I've been doing this for 20+ years anyway. You don't have to push the envelope for speed and instability to enjoy this platform. mine runs 24/7 and is so sweet I could almost cry. (grin)
This stuff doesnt have to cost a fortune. The 256mb pieces I buy run 20 to 23 bucks a pop and the 512mb stsicks run 45 to 55 bucks a pop. You can pay way way more for stuff to OC but if all you want is stable as a rock and you can run reg pc2100 then you can do this cheap.
I paid < $250 for the dual opteron board. under $140 for each 240 opteron.
You can add 1gb of reg pc2100 for under $100 if you scarf around.
You don't HAVE to run $400 cpu's or $400 memory to get in the game now IF you don't mind scarfing around for parts and the goal is a rock solid system today you can upgrade later...
Tex
As long as the motherboardor in this case the cpu takes registered pc2100 memory THATS the key. Not the brand. You can get single socket 940 motherboards for around 100 bucks. The opteron is socket 940 and has the memory controller built in so I know it takes registered memory. The non fx athlon 64 fits a differant socket and doesnt use registered memory though so be careful. If you get a regular athlon 64 and your not OC'ing it then just use EXACTLY what the manufacturer recomends is the safe way to go.
Tex
But as long as you just stick with memory on the approved list for the motherboard in question with normal athlon 64's you won't have trouble either. When your pushing the top end and OC'ing and trying toi wring the last ounce of performance out of a rig... thats where the memory choice is both more critical and pricey also. As you have obviously found.
Tex
My motherboard is an MSI K8T Master2-FAR, and its only issue is that it doesn't seem to like Folding. I'm pretty sure it's BIOS thing though and MSI will have a fix out sometime. Other than that, it's an excellent machine and the only times I've BSOD'd it were from flaky software.
I might overclock the graphics card, but I'm not going to play with the possibility of screwing up a pair of $1k processors.
-drasnor
my 240's didn't like it. (grin) But I paid about half for both my cpu's as single 248's cost new. Or less.... (grin) My pair ran like 300 bucks total.
nice rig. Good Luck!
Tex