Need RAM answer quick if you could...

[Zedmeister]

Slight concern on my part. Specs:

Asus A8V Delux S939 Mobo
Athlon 64 3500
(About to order) OCZ 1GB (2x512MB) PC3700 Dual Channel Platinum Edition

I'm not looking to overclock, but am concerned about reducing the speed of my RAM down so it is compatible with my mobo (Mobo supports up to DDR 400, RAM Goes to DDR466). Will this call problems or should I downgrade my RAM to the OCZ 1GB PC3200 Platinumn Edition sticks? Will there be any differences/benefits/performance hits, etc, etc. Which one to go for? Advice and comments appreciated...

[skattrd]

Stick with the pc3700, it'll give you a bit of room for overclocking, and iirc it can run at quite tight timings anyway

[turkster]

If you dont need them for the high clock speed then there is little point in getting the PC3700.
I'm pretty sure that in general sticks that are optimised for high clock speed will not neccessarily run much tighter timings at a lower clock speed. This is because optimising clock speed and optimising timings are quite different processes.

[Shogun]

Stick with the 3700, Because it will be running at a lower speed this would allow you to tighten up the ram timings a bit which would increase bandwidth. Would also allow you to overclock more before the ram speed limits you.

[Platinum]

If you dont plan to overclock then save some money and get 2 sticks of standard PC3200

[Swafe]

id go with plat, pc3200 is a lot cheaper than pc3700, you might as well get cheaper sticks, and use the money elsewhere when you need up upgrade

as already said if your not going to overclock, you need ddr400, so you might as well get it, it wont be a bottleneck as its running as fast as the system bus, plus wont cost you the earth

[Platinum]

Plus the money saved can be spent on beer

[Rave]

Well, the memory bandwidth on socket 939 systems suffers quite a bit of you can't run at 1T command rate (or whatever it's called). It's worth buying decent memory- although the Platinum edition PC3200 should really be able to manage a 1T command rate I should think. Of course, I stick by my usual assertion that memory bandwidth doesn't make much difference overall, but then as you're already paying twice as much for a socket 939 system that'll outperform S754 by at most 10%, you might as well do the job properly.

Also I have to ask- why are you not planning to overclock? If you want a system at the performance level of a stock S939 3500, what you should be doing is buying a socket 754 system for half as much and overclocking it to the level of the S939 system. Then you can put the money you've saved towards beer or future upgrades.

Rich :¬)