Another memory question

Hi all im about to build a new system and thought i knew a bit about computers but looking around now theres so much too choose from im stuggling too keep up with it all!

Anyway the heart of the system will be the E6600 on the EVGA nForce 680i SLi mobo with the 768MB BFG Technology 8800GTX Overclocked (may run 2 in the future) now, the problem im having is selecting the memory.

These are the two i have been looking at

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £58.74 inc VAT

and

OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-8500 1066MHz Reaper HPC Edition Dual Channel DDR2 £123.36 inc VAT

The GeIL is cheaper and iv heard it overclocks well but is it worth buying the 680i mobo using this ram? Also i could buy 4Gig for the same price as the OCZ 2Gig, is this a better option?

The OCZ runs at 1066MHz default which is the same as the E6600 so does this mean i can overclock the system better with this ram or get a better performane? BTW i will be using it for gaming.

If anyone can shed some light on this as to which combo to use or even suggest a different ram would be much appriciated :help:

What about the OCZ Platinum PC6400 Rev2- 800mhz.

YOu can get a 2x1gb Kit now for about £75 if you look in the right places and its FANTASTIC.

I quite fancy the ballistic tracers they look nice and use the micron chips don't they?

Yes they do. The 8500 ones are excellent.

the OCZ plat.rev2 get very good results overclocking on the 680 mobos but the 1066 rated RAM will give you more overclocking headroom. Depends what fsb you are likely to be targeting. The low latency ddr800 (both the ocz and the geil) will get you a 400fsb no problem at 1:1 settings and keeping their low latency which should give you very good performance:-

multiplier * fsb = core speed
9 * 400 = 3600

Should be able to get a lot more out of that ram on that mobo as well if you are willing to fiddle, depends how far you are willing to push things and how far your cooling options take you.

However, the 1066mhz will give you much more headroom than that, and the Reaper heat spreader is supposed to be pretty effective though I haven't seen one yet.

In terms of value the Geil and the OCZ rev2 are cheap at the moment and will give you more than enough performance, but on a nice 680i mobo you should squeeze a little more performance out of the pc-8500 memory. So I guess it depends how much of a perfectionist you are.

Hope that helps.

4GB of slower RAM is worth more than the extra mhz and 6400 is plenty for overclocking C2D.

I bought 8500 and wish I'd gone the other way tbh. You'll need need an x64 OS for 4GB though.