Disvengeance had this to say k, so its the 128 i guess, thanks:)
I know this is kind of off topic, but what is the best choice of ram to get, i want pc3500 and 2 sticks of 256, i was originally going to go the kingston hyperX, unless theres something better.
Why not get pc 4000 or 4200 even? I'm just putting this out there cause I saw some listed on pricewatch. Is this stuff not available yet? I think I saw it listed a couple months ago on both kingston and corsair sites.
What kinda crack are you smoking...J/K.
Seriously though I'd have to disagree with that by a long shot.
In the game benches I've seen a 5900U runs within 10% of the 9800pro and in others it beats it by a few percent.
If you'll look in the Aqua Mark3 thread you'll notice that my 5900U is ahead in the benches except for being beaten by a 9800Pro by a mere 6000 points and he's got a 3000 point lead in the cpu score.
I hate to disagree so much but the 5900U gets way too maligned and it is in-fact a damned good card.
Amd systems, especially nforce chipsets, dig fast timings. While pentium 4's compensate for slower timings with raw fsb mhz (big surpise). Until the release of the Pentium 4 C core there was no need for this pc4000, pc4200 memory. Simply because no cpu's available at the time could reach that fsb speed.
The only cpu i've seen to take about 230 fsb and higher on conventional air is a Pentium 4 800 FSB chip, also know as a Pentium 4 C. The 400 fsb XP's still cannot reach past the 220-230 barrier without error. So the cpu gains much more from timings than from fsb speed.
Now you're probably thinking, well I'm sure if the memory is rated to run at DDR500 and DDR533 and 8-4-4-3.0 that they could do DDR400 at 5(6)-2-2-2.0. However this is not the case which is why choosing a lower latency brand like Corsair, Mushkin, HyperX with speeds of pc3200, pc3500, and pc3700 would be the clear cut winners on an amd system.
Hope you could decipher my horrible combination of words and phrases to get the full explanation of why Pc3200, 3500, and 3700 would be wiser decisions.
So basically getting that ram even for a P4 800MHz fsb box might not really get you much anyway, since you are probably just trading lower timing for higher bus speed, so you might loose any advantage of increasing the bus speed by the required slower memory timings.
I would guess that the additional cost for this higher speed ram makes any slight advantage not worth it.
Has there been any benchmark comparisons of the 3500 ram with low timings vs the 4000 ram with high timings on the P4 systems? (I'm asking cause I have one of those and I am running pc2100 memory just cause I didn't have the cash to upgrade it when I bought the cpu and mobo). If they are pretty much the same performance then I might as well just get the cheaper 3500 series ram.
Midnight had this to say
So basically getting that ram even for a P4 800MHz fsb box might not really get you much anyway, since you are probably just trading lower timing for higher bus speed, so you might loose any advantage of increasing the bus speed by the required slower memory timings.
I would guess that the additional cost for this higher speed ram makes any slight advantage not worth it.
PC4000 and PC4200 ram specs are basicly for the extreme intel overclockers. Those who have the cooling and processor to get the fsb up so high. Intel cpu's are multipler locked. Meaning that the only way to overclock their cpu's is to raise the fsb. Since all of them come with 200 mhz (800 quad pumped, 400 DDR) fsbs the only difference from a mhz standpoint is the multipler setting. Therefore users who buy 2.4c's to overclock must buy heavy memory such as pc4000, pc4200. On the other hand users who buy 2.8, 3.0, and 3.2 p4's reach the chip's limits earlier so PC4000, PC4200 memory is not necessary.
For example 2.4c's have a locked multipler of 12 (12x200=2400). So to increase the speed of the cpu their overclock is very ram dependant.
For 3.2's the multipler is locked at 16 (16x200=3200). Since the 3.2's have the little head start with the multipler they are not so dependent on the memory. Since to reach 3600 mhz you only need an fsb of 225, which some of the best pc3200 can run at, and most pc3500 can run at.
On the other hand for the p4 2.4c's to be overclocked to 3000 mhz, an fsb of 250 must be achieved (250x12=3000). This is on a chipset that is spec'd for 200 fsb, however the canterwood and springdale chipsets have a lot of fsb headroom on their boards.
So with memory the speed you buy depends on the multipler of your processor. If it's an AMD processor, the fastest memory that wouldn't be considered overkill would be pc3500 (217), at the most 233 if you're not running conventional air, but at that point the AMD chipsets (kt600,kt400, nforce2, nforce, are being stretched to their limits as well as the athlon cpu's which seem have little headroom above 225 fsb and 2500 mhz.
So I have a 3.0 P4, so I guess I would probably get the 3500 ram if I ever decide to upgrade it I think upgrading my radeon 8500 is probably a better use of the money at this point since I would only be upgrading my ram to get better gaming performance anyway.
The people you should be thanking are the other members of this forum who have taught me over the last 3/4 of a year. From joining the forum and asking why not to buy pc3700 for a 2500+ and thinking that Thunderbirds where AMD's Xeon equivaltent to today the overclocker that I am. Knowledge kicks ass, especially when your wealth of knowledge is in something you love.
Anyways, here's what i would recommend as an upgrade for you system.
is there really a difference between buying two sticks of the pc3500 256 mushkin from new egg, and purchasing there (more expensive) dual channel pack of 2x 256 mb pc3500 of mushkin?
Disvengeance had this to say is there really a difference between buying two sticks of the pc3500 256 mushkin from new egg, and purchasing there (more expensive) dual channel pack of 2x 256 mb pc3500 of mushkin?
No there's no difference. Well, there is a 10 cent difference, but I suspect it's because of the packaging. Remember to compare Lvl 2 256 sticks with Lvl 2 512 packs. There truly is no extra price difference.
ok thx. cause in the past (probably before you were born, or damn close to it lol jk) I thought there were computers that would use 2 sticks of ram as 1 logical stick in order to get more performance. so you'd toss two 2 megs sticks in there and get .... 2 megs of usable ram. maybe i'm smoking something but I think it worked that way. Taht was about 5000 beers ago so I can't say for sure anymore lol.
the funniest part is that I'm a computer science and engineering grad from UCLA. lol.
i know that **** sounds like some bizarro world, but I'm pretty sure it was something like using two 16 bit memory chips to make up a 32 bit memory bus. so in fact you had to add 2 sticks of ram at a time. it wouldn't even work with just 1. anyway tho my iq has dropped by about 50 points since college so it hurts to try and remember this stuff.
peace out.
0
Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited October 2003
SIMMs... had to be added in pairs. However, the total accessible RAM was still = to the combined total of all the SIMMs.
Comments
Why not get pc 4000 or 4200 even? I'm just putting this out there cause I saw some listed on pricewatch. Is this stuff not available yet? I think I saw it listed a couple months ago on both kingston and corsair sites.
Anyone have this stuff yet?
Seriously though I'd have to disagree with that by a long shot.
In the game benches I've seen a 5900U runs within 10% of the 9800pro and in others it beats it by a few percent.
If you'll look in the Aqua Mark3 thread you'll notice that my 5900U is ahead in the benches except for being beaten by a 9800Pro by a mere 6000 points and he's got a 3000 point lead in the cpu score.
I hate to disagree so much but the 5900U gets way too maligned and it is in-fact a damned good card.
here
here
here
here
here
here
Reasons not to buy pc4000, pc4200 for his system:
Amd systems, especially nforce chipsets, dig fast timings. While pentium 4's compensate for slower timings with raw fsb mhz (big surpise). Until the release of the Pentium 4 C core there was no need for this pc4000, pc4200 memory. Simply because no cpu's available at the time could reach that fsb speed.
The only cpu i've seen to take about 230 fsb and higher on conventional air is a Pentium 4 800 FSB chip, also know as a Pentium 4 C. The 400 fsb XP's still cannot reach past the 220-230 barrier without error. So the cpu gains much more from timings than from fsb speed.
Now you're probably thinking, well I'm sure if the memory is rated to run at DDR500 and DDR533 and 8-4-4-3.0 that they could do DDR400 at 5(6)-2-2-2.0. However this is not the case which is why choosing a lower latency brand like Corsair, Mushkin, HyperX with speeds of pc3200, pc3500, and pc3700 would be the clear cut winners on an amd system.
Hope you could decipher my horrible combination of words and phrases to get the full explanation of why Pc3200, 3500, and 3700 would be wiser decisions.
So basically getting that ram even for a P4 800MHz fsb box might not really get you much anyway, since you are probably just trading lower timing for higher bus speed, so you might loose any advantage of increasing the bus speed by the required slower memory timings.
I would guess that the additional cost for this higher speed ram makes any slight advantage not worth it.
Has there been any benchmark comparisons of the 3500 ram with low timings vs the 4000 ram with high timings on the P4 systems? (I'm asking cause I have one of those and I am running pc2100 memory just cause I didn't have the cash to upgrade it when I bought the cpu and mobo). If they are pretty much the same performance then I might as well just get the cheaper 3500 series ram.
For example 2.4c's have a locked multipler of 12 (12x200=2400). So to increase the speed of the cpu their overclock is very ram dependant.
For 3.2's the multipler is locked at 16 (16x200=3200). Since the 3.2's have the little head start with the multipler they are not so dependent on the memory. Since to reach 3600 mhz you only need an fsb of 225, which some of the best pc3200 can run at, and most pc3500 can run at.
On the other hand for the p4 2.4c's to be overclocked to 3000 mhz, an fsb of 250 must be achieved (250x12=3000). This is on a chipset that is spec'd for 200 fsb, however the canterwood and springdale chipsets have a lot of fsb headroom on their boards.
So with memory the speed you buy depends on the multipler of your processor. If it's an AMD processor, the fastest memory that wouldn't be considered overkill would be pc3500 (217), at the most 233 if you're not running conventional air, but at that point the AMD chipsets (kt600,kt400, nforce2, nforce, are being stretched to their limits as well as the athlon cpu's which seem have little headroom above 225 fsb and 2500 mhz.
So I have a 3.0 P4, so I guess I would probably get the 3500 ram if I ever decide to upgrade it
The people you should be thanking are the other members of this forum who have taught me over the last 3/4 of a year. From joining the forum and asking why not to buy pc3700 for a 2500+ and thinking that Thunderbirds where AMD's Xeon equivaltent to today the overclocker that I am. Knowledge kicks ass, especially when your wealth of knowledge is in something you love.
Anyways, here's what i would recommend as an upgrade for you system.
Dual Channel 2x 256 Pack Mushkin Level 2 Pc3500
or
2 sticks of Corsair XMS 256 mb Pc3500 2-3-3-7
You should be able to get at least 3600 out of that setup, but if your ram really pushes you far you might be able to go 3675 or 3750.
Hopefully those 2 do 250 without any problems.
No there's no difference. Well, there is a 10 cent difference, but I suspect it's because of the packaging. Remember to compare Lvl 2 256 sticks with Lvl 2 512 packs. There truly is no extra price difference.
(retarded question I know, but I don't know how these dual channel setups work these days.)
the funniest part is that I'm a computer science and engineering grad from UCLA. lol.
i know that **** sounds like some bizarro world, but I'm pretty sure it was something like using two 16 bit memory chips to make up a 32 bit memory bus. so in fact you had to add 2 sticks of ram at a time. it wouldn't even work with just 1. anyway tho my iq has dropped by about 50 points since college so it hurts to try and remember this stuff.
peace out.