Do I need 1066 memory? (Core2 Quad + P5K Premium)

[wombar]

Hi All,

I'm nearly ready to order my new rig and need some help choosing the memory. The ASUS P5k Premium appears to support the faster memory (1066) but is the faster memory actually worth having? I'm probably going to overclock at some point in the future, but it won't be top of my list initially.

I'd like to put 4Gb of RAM (2x2Gb if possible, but 4xGb1 if I have to). I've got about £200 to spend on RAM and will be running XP for now but will probably upgrade to Vista 64 over the next 12-18 months. Obviously the price difference between 800 and 1066 is pretty big, I don't mind spending the money, as long as it's actually worth it.

So what do you guys think?

[staffsMike]

You wont notice a difference. 800mhz ram wil run that q6600 at 3.6GHz brfore you are even overclocking the ram. Don't spend more thsn £80 on 4GB.. anything over that is waste. I would pay about £70 if it were my money.

[wombar]

Thanks Mike, initially I'll be running at stock speeds but didn't want to shoot myself in the foot by buying the wrong speed of RAM. Looking at either some Corsair or some Crucial RAM as I've had that in my last 2 systems and it's always done me proud.

Might be a stupid question, but why is this:

Corsair XMS6400 4GB DDR2 (2x2GB) 800Mhz Non-ECC : csr-x644g5

So much cheaper than:

4GB kit (2GBx2), 240-pin DIMM, DDR2 PC2-6400 upgrades for ASUS P5K Premium/WiFi-AP Motherboard, CT767737 from Crucial.com

I'm thinking that I'll end up going for the Corsair stuff because I can pick up from Novatech on Sunday (hopefully).

[Steve B]

Intel Quad pump the FSB strap, so 1066 is actually an FSB of 266.5.
Your 800MHz DDR2 is capable of running at an FSB of upto 400MHz (as its Double data rate) so its well within its limits.

[staffsMike]

Crucial are seriously overcharging imo.

It's not even the ballistix ram which is very good and would easily overclock to 1066mhz.

Corsair ram is usually very stable but doesn't seem to overclock well these days. This isn't really a problem as I already said, PC6400 is enough to get a q6600 to 3.6GHz.

I'd check out some of these
DDR2 Computer Memory Upgrade for Desktop and Laptop Computers

The patriot and g-skill kits towards the bottom cost a little more but do offer CAS4 latencies.

There is also the geil black dragon set for £70 which is dirt cheap for that stuff.

[wombar]

Cheers Steve B. That makes much more sense, I think I actually get it now

And cheers to staffsMike who seems to have pressed the submit button at the same time I was typing my message I thought the crucial stuff seemed expensive but couldn't tell why. Will check out the link you sent now.

[smellybumlove]

my corsair XMS2 tops out ot 436mhz.
in fact i am in the process of getting 4gb of ram myself, split between gskill or these cheap sticks they have here with go to at least 1150 at 2.2v.

[Hunain]

Well you certainly dont need the fastest ram, even for overclocking, just to put it here, Im using my old Kingston value 667Mhz ram sticks with my ASUS p5k, right now my FSB is at 428Mhz, the "value ram" is holding up fine, im on a 3.0Ghz, ive even gotten as far as 3.2Ghz and stopped there, not because my ram held me back (was just scared id melt the system) lol.

The ram is doing great in benchmarks as well, beats the 800Mhz stock rams quite easily. Well, "value ram" it is

[pepsi_max2k]

There's a very good explanation of DDR speeds in relation to FSB speeds at Important to match FSB and memory speed nowadays? - Topic Powered by eve community but in short, if you're using intel and not oc'ing, use whatever matches your fsb. for a 1066 (266) fsb that would be ddr2-533 in dual chanel mode.

[wombar]

Thanks for the replies everyone, I understand Intels quad pumped FSB to RAM speed now. Gonna be ordering my parts from Novatech on Monday for collection in Reading on Tuesday. I always prefer to buy from places where I can collect in person because it gives me shouting rights should something not work

Gonna go for the link I posted above because I won't be going for extreme overclocking. I'll probably push the chip up to 3ghz in the future, but the Corsair stuff will be fine for that.

[carbon8ed]

FWIW my 2 x2GB + 2 x 1GB 5300 crucial is running my q6600 at 800MHz with nmo probs and cheap vdata 5300 is also running at 800 without any probs, all memtest stable.

HTH,