Ballistix or Standard?

[Stewart]

Another RAM thread, sorry lads.

Right, here's the set up:

I'm looking at sticking a gig of RAM in the following system - Athlon64 3500+ (939 socket), X800XT-PE, Asus A8V Deluxe.

Now, I can get a gig of standard Crucial DDR400 for £118, or a gig of Crucial Ballistix for about £170.

Ballistix is rated at 2-2-2-6, but I was running the standard Crucial stuff at 2-2-2.5-11 on my old T-Bred 3200+, Asus A7N8X Delxue, 9800pro rig.

So the timings are a bit tighter on the Ballistix, but enough to be worth the extra cash on my rig? I can tighten the timings on the normal stuff, see what happens, and its going to be a good, solid performer. I've always used Crucial RAM before, and its always done everything I've asked of it, so it will 100% be one or the other of these two.

So, what do you reckon will be the best price \ performance deal?

A gig of Crucial DDR400 for £118 or a gig of Crucial Ballistix DDR400 for £170 (50 notes more).

What sort of performance increase would I be looking at if I spend the extra on the Ballistix?

And what would you get?

Cheers lads.

PS - Ignore what it says in my sig, I've not decided on the RAM yet, hence this thread, and I'm *still* waiting for my X800XT-PE to come into stock.

[Agent]

Almost non on that.
Infact, most nforce 2 botherboards give better results at 11, than they do at any lower setting. I know its not a NF2 mobo, but still.
The CAS wont make a huge difference either (well, not to justify 50 quid IMO)

Your looking at very few FPS, if any, each way.
Certainly not worth the extra 50.

[Stewart]

Cheers mate. I can afford to get either, but I'm not chucking an extra £50 at something before I know what sort of performance I'll be getting for that money.

[r1zeek]

Almost non on that.
Infact, most nforce 2 botherboards give better results at 11, than they do at any lower setting. I know its not a NF2 mobo, but still.
The CAS wont make a huge difference either (well, not to justify 50 quid IMO)

Your looking at very few FPS, if any, each way.
Certainly not worth the extra 50.

Totally agree with Agent, you don't really get an noticable performance difference from the CAS.

If I were you I would just get some standard Crucial and see how far that goes, i'm sure it won't be bad anyway!

[Agent]

In things like Pifast, the CAS would be a bit more noticable.
When running around in Doom 3 fragging people, are you going to notice 2-3fps ?

Probably not

[Stewart]

Yeah, I'm not arsed about benckmarks, this is going in my gaming rig, so I'm worried about performance whilst gaming.

Doom III, Half Life II, Rome: Total War, STLAKER, The Sims 2, etc, etc.

[Rave]

Well, on a S939 system you lose a big chunk of memory bandwidth (like 10-15%) if you can't run at a 1T command rate. AFAIK better RAM can run a 1T command rate at higher speeds, but it could be to do with the board. Still, as I always say, memory bandwidth is often over-rated; it makes far less of a difference to overall performance than CPU or GPU speed. According to The Tech Report's latest test, the S754 3400+ with 1mb L2 cache outperforms the S939 3500+ in a lot of games despite having approx. half the memory bandwidth. If you've not ordered the processor yet, then it might be worth waiting around to see if AMD launch the rumoured 3600+ at 2.2GHz with 1mb L2 cache.

Rich :¬)

[Stewart]

CPU already ordered, actually everythings already ordered, apart from the RAM.

[Nomadd]

hehe, seems the votes are for the cheaper stuff. I'll add my voice to that call. Save your money, and use it for an Arctic for your graphics card, or maybe put it towards a water cooling system. You did say you wanted to use the money saved for 'performance' reasons! :-)

Nomadd

[mike_w]

So what did you decide to get in the end? Standard Crucial or Ballistix?

[Firelord]

Well, on a S939 system you lose a big chunk of memory bandwidth (like 10-15%) if you can't run at a 1T command rate. AFAIK better RAM can run a 1T command rate at higher speeds, but it could be to do with the board. Still, as I always say, memory bandwidth is often over-rated; it makes far less of a difference to overall performance than CPU or GPU speed. According to The Tech Report's latest test, the S754 3400+ with 1mb L2 cache outperforms the S939 3500+ in a lot of games despite having approx. half the memory bandwidth. If you've not ordered the processor yet, then it might be worth waiting around to see if AMD launch the rumoured 3600+ at 2.2GHz with 1mb L2 cache.

Rich :¬)

The man is right

personally get the ballistics cos it uses the same ICs as OCZ PC3700EB memory which OCs like a trooper! This stuff is hitting like 250FSB 2.5-5-2-2! Seriously Low Latency! Remember OCZ is like £280 for this memory if your building a high end rig why not treat it to the best

http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2145&p=9

http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2145&p=9

See 257FSB 2.5-5-2-2 2.85v! an increase in 20FPS over standard timings

[Stewart]

Still not ordered. Thought it'd be an easy choice, as I couldn't really afford the Ballistix, but then, I flogged some gear, and got my hands on big wodges of cash. Typical! No luck, thats my trouble, no luck at all.

Still, the endless delays to my X800XT-PE will give me time to read a few reviews, and see whats what. I might get the Ballistix just to see what it can do; its new shiny, sexy RAM from a retailer I have 100% trust and respect for, so I'm very tempted.

Thanks for the links FireLord, reading now over a cuppa.

[Firelord]

No probs d00d

[Agent]

Thats a P4, not an AMD, so keep that in mind
As your building a 64bit machine though (i must have skimpt over that bit ), the system will take more advantage of the memory over its counterpart socket A platform.

So, the question now is; are you overclocking ?

[Stewart]

I will be, once I've got everything sorted, yes. On my old rig (Asus A7N8X Deluxe, T-Bred 2600+, 9800pro, 512mb Crucial PC3200) I was running the CPU at 2.3ghz, the RAM at 11\2\2\2.5, the 9800pro flashed to 9800XT and the OCed a bit more, FSB up above 200mhz etc, etc.

Can't be arsed running anything at stock now, after all that, so yes, overclocking will happen, if I like it or not; I know I wont be able to resist.

In short; yes.

[BUFF]

There is some serious suspicion on the forums that Anandtech got some hand-picked wonder sticks as people who have bought it can't replicate their results.