DDR2 at 1066mhz with slack timings or 800mhz with tight timings?

[c.ruel]

I bought a stick of 800mhz ballistix ram to go with my 1066 stick of ballistix as I read in the mobo manual that 1066mhz was not supported in dual channel due to "an amd cpu limitation". But I tried putting them both at 1066 and the seemed to work ok, the timings I used were 6-6-6-6-18 with a voltage of 2. I then ran memtest for AGEEESSS like 8 hours or something ridiculous and when I came back my computer was off and I turned it on and it said it had shutdown unexpectedly. so I have no idea how long it was until it failed. I reckon it should be ok if I made the timings higher and maybe upped the voltage to 2.1 ... what do you think. The ram modules seem to run fine at 800mhz with timings of 4-4-4-4-12. So if my memory runs fine at 800mhz with really tight timings is it worth the risk and will performance be better or worse!? Also does anyone know anything about this cpu "limitation" for ganged ram.

Thanks in advance

[scaryjim]

... does anyone know anything about this cpu "limitation" for ganged ram.

Not without you telling us what mobo and what cpu

[b00sfuk]

Without knowing the hardware I would say it depends. Generally though I find a 5-5-5 1066 settings faster than a 4-4-4 800 one. The faster speed of 1066 does help reduce latency that the slacker timings bring in. Most timings effectively define the number of clock cycles etc. to do things but of course with higher speed memory these cycles are closer together now.
Best course of action is to try both and see which you prefer, I would guess you will not notice any difference anyway as it is only going to be an odd percentage.

[c.ruel]

Yeah I think I might stick to 800 and 4-4-4-4-12 as on benchmarking programs them seems to be no difference and as that is what it is rated for and that is what the motherboard and cpu want then ... probably best to do that so I don't wreck my hardware.

Thanks though guys.

BTW my motherboard was an ASUS m3A78-em and my cpu is a phenom II x3.