Memory ?

W4R-H1LD

{on a side note I hope this is posted in the right place I didnt see a forum for memory} I just made the jump to Amd 64 and Im curious as to what makes some memory better/faster/ more stable than others? What brands of memory work best with the Amd 64? I bought the 939 3200+ and want to get 2 sticks of 512 to run dual, someone told me that if you fill up all 4 memory slots in motherboard it goes from 400 to 333 is there any truth to this? I take it that ddr3200 is the minimum for this dual to work and is it worth it to spend the extra money for faster memory than the ddr3200? This rig is going to be mainly used for online DM/TDM UT2k4. Thank you in advance for any information on these questions!

mmonnin

The only reason to get faster memory than PC3200 is if you plan to overclock.

As far as why some sticks are better than others, there are different latencies described by the manufacture. Some have more latencies than others causing lower performance.

TheLostSwede

W4R(H1LD wrote:

{on a side note I hope this is posted in the right place I didnt see a forum for memory} I just made the jump to Amd 64 and Im curious as to what makes some memory better/faster/ more stable than others? What brands of memory work best with the Amd 64? I bought the 939 3200+ and want to get 2 sticks of 512 to run dual, someone told me that if you fill up all 4 memory slots in motherboard it goes from 400 to 333 is there any truth to this? I take it that ddr3200 is the minimum for this dual to work and is it worth it to spend the extra money for faster memory than the ddr3200? This rig is going to be mainly used for online DM/TDM UT2k4. Thank you in advance for any information on these questions!

Most of todays high-end memory is based on overclocking. If you do not intend to overclock at all, 2X512 of any valueram will do just fine. That will net you cas 2.5,3,3,7 timings at best at PC3200 speeds. However, with better memory (there's a jungle of them), you can use cas 2,2,2,5 timings at same speed which will increase the memory bandwidth by a lot, your fps will rise in games and applications will load faster than before etc. The other good thing with high-end stuff is that it let you overclock your rig a lot if you wish. 20 fsb/htt extra at the same timings is quite a lot of extra performance.

Let me know if you are going to buy memory and what pricerange you are thinking about. I can try to test your configuration right here if you wish

W4R-H1LD

That would be awsome! thx Mackanz Id like to get 1 gig kit looking to spend in the 150-200 range, Im not locked into this price but Id be comfortable spending this amount. Msi K8T Neo 2 via chipset Amd 64 3200, Ati 9800 Pro. I do plan on overclocking thank for the help!

TheLostSwede

I would strongly suggest changing mainboard to a Nforce based board. The via boards severely limits good overclocking since the agp and pci busses isn't always locked on them.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-890&depa=0

Thats a memory that give you the best of both worlds. The memory is proven to work great on A64's in general. Tight timings at 3200 speed, and looser timings at massive fsb/htt. But hurry up though, Samsung TCCD chips, as this memory is built on, is end of life as Samsung decided not to manufacture it anymore. The prices on that memory WILL rise to ungodly levels very soon i'm afraid. Even i can't get another pair from the office, it's that bad. I'm actually going to buy another pair locally.

W4R-H1LD

Is the agp/pci lockdown something that can be fixed in a new bios release or ? Thats some nice memory !! what set of ocz do you use?

muddocktor

W4R(H1LD wrote:

Is the agp/pci lockdown something that can be fixed in a new bios release or ? Thats some nice memory !! what set of ocz do you use?

I can't fill you in on the lockdown on the Via chipsets, but Mack is using the OCZ PC 3700 EL Gold Rev3 I believe, and I'm using the ram he linked to at Newegg. I get awesome memory performance out of that Plat 3200 Rev2.

I believe that the ram that Mac is using is this one. If I'm wrong about Mack's ram, I'm sure he will correct me.

TheLostSwede

I'm using this ram:


http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-227-017&depa=0

Same chips as the ones i linked to before. It's just binned higher. That doesn't mean they are better though.

lemonlime

I just got some OCZ Platinum EL Rev.2. It is absolutely fantastic ram.

I'm running at 305MHz 1:1 with 2.5-4-3-7 timings on my A64 rig. Memtest86+ stable for hours. NCIX had them on sale for $330 cdn which is quite reasonable. They may still be on sale for a limited time. If you are thinking of picking some up, you may want to do so soon, as the modules have recently been discontinued.

TheLostSwede

That's sick speeds lemonlime! Post some screenies.

Here's what i did a few minutes ago. Just for fun, i tested 2T. They do 345 htt 1:1 at 2T but i can't max out the cpu so i have to use 320. This is all memtest stable for 10 loops at least:

GrayFox

lemonlime wrote:

I just got some OCZ Platinum EL Rev.2. It is absolutely fantastic ram.

I'm running at 305MHz 1:1 with 2.5-4-3-7 timings on my A64 rig. Memtest86+ stable for hours. NCIX had them on sale for $330 cdn which is quite reasonable. They may still be on sale for a limited time. If you are thinking of picking some up, you may want to do so soon, as the modules have recently been discontinued.

Are they based on the samsung tccd chips ?

TheLostSwede

Yes Grayfox, they are. Platinum 3200 rev.2, Platinum 3700 and Platinum 4200 is our TCCD-based memorys.

GrayFox

Cool that just went on my list of stuff to buy

lemonlime

MackanzOCZ wrote:

That's sick speeds lemonlime! Post some screenies.

Here's what i did a few minutes ago. Just for fun, i tested 2T. They do 345 htt 1:1 at 2T but i can't max out the cpu so i have to use 320. This is all memtest stable for 10 loops at least:

Cool stuff.. Screenies may have to wait, my rig is out of commission for a while unfortunatly. My shiny new X850XT is artifacting all over now, even in the BIOS :bawling: Going to have to wait for an RMA.

Gonna have to dig up my old S3 Virge 4MB PCI card.

The 305MHz I obtained was with most of the dram settings left to Auto. I'm sure there is more I could squeeze out, as this new DFI Ultra-D has a lot of tweaking potential. The memory controller in my 3500+ seems primo as well. Cant wait to start stretching it out a bit more. That was at 1T with 2.9Vdimm.

Hey Mackanz, I'm not too sure how well these rev.2 react to voltage, what does OCZ recommend for these modules as far as a safe maximum? I used to have platinum rev.1 previously, which loved the vdimm, I believe it was CH-5 based though.

TheLostSwede

The rev 2's like it best between 2.65 and 2.8 from what i have seen. I have tried as high as 3.5 but didn't gain a single mhz or stability.

lemonlime

Installed my S3 card .. Still have not done much tuning yet. This winchester is proving to be troublesome in the ~2.6GHz range. This is all with an 8x multi..

TheLostSwede

Try to drop the Trtw to 2. You are running 2T now. 270 at same timings with 1T gives about the same bandwidth but a lot less strain on the memorycontroller on the cpu.

lemonlime

MackanzOCZ wrote:

Try to drop the Trtw to 2. You are running 2T now. 270 at same timings with 1T gives about the same bandwidth but a lot less strain on the memorycontroller on the cpu.

Oh really, I will give that a try. So even with CPC enabled, It's running at 2T when Trtw is 4?

TheLostSwede

In a way, yes. Drop to 285, set it to 1 and see if it's stable. If it is, just go up with one at a time.
Also set TRC to 7 and Trfc to 15 for a little boost

mmonnin

You should do some mem bandwidth tests between each change to see how it improves.