PC4000 vs PC3200

[Chimpie]

Quick question:

Should I buy PC4000 or PC3200 if I'm planning to overclock my (not yet arrived ) AMD64 3000+ on a DFI LP NF3? Both are Corsair-brand...

Thx in advance!!

[Furton]

Pc4000

[BUFF]

Which particular modules?
I would probably go for 3200XL

[Furton]

If you've going to overclock you'll want more headroom than 3200, Some PC4000 Crucial Ballistix should be good for your mobo.

[Chimpie]

Which particular modules?
I would probably go for 3200XL

Why would you go for 3200 XL? Will it overclock just as high as PC4000?!

If I'm going for Corsair, I'm going for PC3200XLL or XMS4000...

[mad_allan]

If you've going to overclock you'll want more headroom than 3200, Some PC4000 Crucial Ballistix should be good for your mobo.

I agree with Furton on this one, if you can get yourself some Ballistix, do so. They seem to be proving very popular with excellent results on the A64 platform

[skattrd]

Whatever you get you want stuff that does reasonably good timings, so I'd be tempted to go for good quality 32/35/3700 - OCZ EB if you can find it, otherwise Cucial Ballistix is a good choice.

I've found loose timings (7,4,3,2.5) 1:1 perform virtually the same as tight timings 5:4 (5,2,2,2) - thats on my p4 rig in sig.
I'm not sure if its the same performance difference running dividers on A64.

[Lee H]

I've found loose timings (7,4,3,2.5) 1:1 perform virtually the same as tight timings 5:4 (5,2,2,2) - thats on my p4 rig in sig.
I'm not sure if its the same performance difference running dividers on A64.

AMD 64 memory controller is much better than the intel equivalent in taking advantage of low latency memory hence the reason AMD probably stook with DDR and did not move to DDR2.

As for Overclocking - any good brand of DDR400 can be clocked to about 420 Mhz without that much of an impact on the timings. I have some nice BH5 based Corsair 3200 in my system ( 2500+ unlocked ) running @ 425 With no bad issues and no stability issues.

[Firelord]

Corsair XMS3200XL Pro stock 2-5-2-2 200FSB currently running - 2-10-3-3 (10 is best for nf3-250 boards) 1T 3.1v 233MHz FSB stable.

Nuff said

[Zak33]

if its the same dough....or at least close, you have to get the 4000 stuff, simply because even if you dont overclock, the plain fact is that you'll be able to shave those timings down more on the faster stuff.

In fact, as WildmonkeyUK points out, the AMD mobo's do love to have very responsive memory. The controllers are better, and more capable of dealing with seriously speedy timings.

My money normally goes on a standard grade ram from Crucial but at the next rating up from what I need, so I can simply tweak timings and still have a stable system for low dough

so I got PC3200 when I needed PC2700, and simply run it at 6-2-2-2 at 166/333 on my XP chip.

[Firelord]

If you don't plan to overclock get PC3200 because then you will have tight timings with something like Ballistics or XMS3200XL

PC4000 is rated at 3-3-3-8 and generally don't go much lower as XMS3200XL or Ballistics will do those timings at PC4000 speeds

[BUFF]

What you increasingly find is that the tight timing 3200 RAM & the looser higher speed RAM actually use the same chips with different SPD programming e.g. Ballistix 3200 & 4000 are exactly the same bar the SPD programming so the 3200 will run at the same speeds as the 4000 with the same timings & vice versa (but the 3200 is slightly cheaper ).
On an AMD64 platform you are still on the whole better to run tighter timings at a lower speed (today's sweeping generalisation ) .

[StormPC]

On an AMD64 platform you are still on the whole better to run tighter timings at a lower speed (today's sweeping generalisation ) .

True but only to a point. Most people with A8Vs (since they are tough to vmod for the DIMM volts) will get far better performance from 2.5-3-3-8 memory running at 480MHz than 2-2-2-5 running at 420.

[BUFF]

I did say that it was a sweeping generalisation & a lot of the newer 2-2-2 stuff will run that upto ~ 450Mhz @2.7/2.8V (& of course if you have the Vdimm for BH-5 then 500 @ 2-2-2 )