Ddr Ram

[M@tt]

If they do check a pair of memory modules to see if they work together, I bet they don't spend anymore time than that, I cannot see them looking though a batch to find, two that happen to overclock the best together, more like if they work at their rated speed then thats it.

Just IMO

[drunkenmaster]

LOL austin, i got a gf4mx 440 8x agp that will do 8000 at stock and 10k+ overclocked, so your numbers are stupidly off, + that was in a 4x agp only system.



With dual channel checked ram, course its a marketing gimmick, to a point so are heatspreaders and using names like Ultra, Platinum and so on. So are ickle leds to show activity(does anyone play games keeping one eye on monitor and one eye on window in case? no, not to mention power drainage from vdimm and heat output in the area increase).

some companies(IE not corsair) charge not much more at all for a dual channel set, and are basically letting you know that they are from same batch.

If you actually check prices in some of the good usa stores, corsair is far cheaper , in so far as, its VERY similarly priced to ocz/geil and otehrs, its just here that corsair is a complete rip off. If you'd noticed ocz are become more in line with corsair pricing than they used to


The diff no one pointed out was teh adata is rated at cas 3, and the geil at cas 2.5, which will make a difference, noticeable or not, it gives you that extra overclocking leway, and with overclocking results, i've seen very few reviews that don't rate geil RIGHt behind ocz and quite a bit ahead of corsair and adata.

SO geil is rated higher, for almost say cost, and likely to go further, and probo max out mobo for stable fsb. Not a bad deal, also considering at the shop that ( i seem to remember being banned around here? maybe) that does daily specials, it goes for £116 per pack of 2x256MB, so is infact cheaper(if you can wait for it to come up again), faster, clocks better. Choice doesn't seem hard to me at all.

PS, almost all canterwood mobo's are pretty much best overall in 4xsingle sided sticks, there seems to be a problem with 4xdouble sided sticks with that asus, in so far as above certain fsb, the PAT stuff is disabled, not with 4 single sided though. But who needs 2 gigs right now.


Almost every friend i know is considering going for 1 gig or has already moved and seen a huge increase in performance. these are average home users, ,1 gig is becoming the standard, with games like republic, 1942, and i would assume HL2, doom 3, max payne 2, and so on, that 512mb will show the strain. 1 gig is deffo needed these days, for any gamer or pretty much anyone.

[dgr]

get decent RAM. i bought 2 * 512mb twinmos cl2 pc3200 with copper heatspreaders a while ago. my pc crashed, just couldn't get windows installed on it. bought a new motherboard, a new hard disc, it just wouldn't work...

this took over 2 months to sort out....

took out one of the RAM modules, and it worked fine!!! memtested the other module, over 80,000 errors in uder 10 minutes...

morale of the story - nothing less than corsair is good enough

dgr

[Austin]

Originally posted by drunkenmaster
LOL austin, i got a gf4mx 440 8x agp that will do 8000 at stock and 10k+ overclocked, so your numbers are stupidly off, + that was in a 4x agp only system.

Well I was talking with everything stock and actually those numbers are spot on as they were tested by me in the same system LOL! Also you mention AGP4x as being a limitation, that's blatently false even in the Rad9800PRO let alone the lowly 3+ years old GF4MX archy! As for latency, sure CL2.5 is nicer than CL3 but in Dual Channel on a SktA that makes no diff at all and even outside of Dual Channel the diffs in real world situation is only 1-2% between the fastest and slowest timings let alone CL2.5 vs CL3.0 which is only 1/5th of the total RAM timing info. For P4 800FSB mobos RAM latency also plays no practical part (from what I've seen to date), the only thing it should allow you to do is make the timings higher in order to get a few more mhz of speed, only handly for o/c'ed 800FSB P4's. As for the Geil rec, they may have improved but they were known for a long time to be using old PC2100-2700 DDR which was hideously over-volted (which many mobos couldn't even provide the volts) in order to just about run at its rated speed ... pants! I'd still suggest 512MB is not limiting and by the time you need 1GB prices should have come down quite a lot esp for the current high end stuff. AnAnd (IIRC) did a very comprehensive roundup of RAM configs in 865/875 mobos and IIRC 2xDS-DDR is the best configuration as you still have 2 vacant slots for expansion, if you fill all 4 slots (I still think DS is best minus incompatibilities) then I would definitely get 1GB from the off.

I did a price roundup for someone yesterday so here's the info if it helps at all...

PC3200 prices...

Crucial (lifetime & free P&P):
256=£39 x2=£78
512=£72 x2=£144

CPUcity:
TwinMOS 256=34 x2=£68
TwinMOS 512=£68 x2=£136

Refresh:
Adata 256=£38 x2=£76
Adata 512=£63 x2=£126

Komplett:
TwinMOS 256=£37 x2=£74
TwinMOS 512=£76 x2=£152
TwinMOS Winbond 256=£46 x2=£92
TwinMOS Winbond 512=£92 x2=£184
TwinMOS Twister 256=£54 x2=£108
TwinMOS Twister 512=£107 x2=£214

Originally posted by dgr
get decent RAM. i bought 2 * 512mb twinmos cl2 pc3200 with copper heatspreaders a while ago. my pc crashed, just couldn't get windows installed on it. bought a new motherboard, a new hard disc, it just wouldn't work...

this took over 2 months to sort out....

took out one of the RAM modules, and it worked fine!!! memtested the other module, over 80,000 errors in uder 10 minutes...

morale of the story - nothing less than corsair is good enough

dgr

Surely the moral would be to test your RAM before messing about with new mobos etc? Corsair is the best, most people agree BUT it's way way over-priced and no where near worth the asking price. I'd certainly advise to steer clear of generic RAM but other than that there's very little true diff between the good brands. Crucial, TwinMOS etc are all VERY close to Corsair and as soon as you factor in price they are WAY ahead. HS are also pretty pointless as RAM is rarely limited by heat output unless it's over-volted (which is unfort common in > PC3200).