RAM for an Abit AN8 Ultra - 2 sticks or 1?

[autopilot]

Right getting a gig of memory when i order my abit AN8 Ultra. But should i get i a 1 gig stick or 2x512 and why?

Also, i hear a few people talking about 1T and 2T. Whats this all about?

[SilentDeath]

The resons for having denser sticks of ram are the obvious limited number of slots but alo the fact that memory controlers cant run the ram as fast, if they have to address multiple sticks.

1T is the most important setting in terms of latency. It makes the a largish difference to total memory bandwidth. Current revisions of AMD64 memory controlers cannot run 4 sticks of ram at 1T and remain stable - although amd are working on fixing that for later revisions I think.

But running at 2T is not a major problem and in many cases having more ram is more important than being limited to 2T.

So 1GB sticks gives you plenty of room to upgrade, and games will use up that ram with ease.
Everquest2 can quite easly eat up 1.5gb of ram, and more demanding games will be coming out. Most FPSs are happy with anything over 768mb although BF2 likes over a gig i think.

Stormpc likes to tell everyone that they dont need more than 1gb for anything and so will be happy to tell you not to get 1gb sticks as in a year we will still all be playing last years games.

I would argue that the difference in 1T and 2T for games is within the margin of error of the test bench (under 3 fps on any recent game).
In synthetic benchmakrs it is however clearly noticable.

[autopilot]

Thanks, so it that a motherboard feature, or something to look out for when buying RAM?

[Smokey21]

2x512mb of course, you want Dual Channel, and it will overclock better.

[SilentDeath]

A single 1gb stick will overclock better than two 512mb sticks - or atleast be limited less by the memory controler

I personaly would save the dual channel action for later on when you need to upgrade - unless you dont intend to need more ram untill everything moves to DDR2.

On second thoughts, dual channel would probably be more important than having to run 2T later on, so 2x512mb may infact be better.

[Smokey21]

A single 1gb stick will overclock better than two 512mb sticks - or atleast be limited less by the memory controler

I personaly would save the dual channel action for later on when you need to upgrade - unless you dont intend to need more ram untill everything moves to DDR2.

On second thoughts, dual channel would probably be more important than having to run 2T later on, so 2x512mb may infact be better.

Erm no.

[autopilot]

Ok ok, someone please clarify.

[autopilot]

The spec for the AN8 Ultra on Abit's site says this...

Support 4 DIMM Dual DDR 400/333/266 non-ECC memory

Does this mean it supports dual channel memory? And does this mean I will need specific dual chanel memory? Should i go for (2x512) Corsair XMS Twinx memory then?

Christ, why do Corsair have to have soooo many different models of memory?!

[Mark@SCAN]

I would go for either

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...roductID=71473

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=118550

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...roductID=75522

If faster memory is of importance too you then i advise going for either of the top 2. If you would prefer more memory i would advise purchasing 2 lots of the 3rd stick of memory. This would give you 2gig of RAM which today isn't really much of a big deal and will help in all of todays games and games due out over the coming year...

This would also be very cheap for 2 gig of RAM and still cheaper that the top 2

Always buy the memory in pairs and NOT single sticks of memory. If you are purchasing either a Venice OR San Diago core CPU these BOTH have updated memory controllers on which BOTH support running 4 sticks of memory upto 1gig @ PC3200/DDR400

Hope this helps and clears some things up for you

Thanks

[autopilot]

Thanks Mark,

I think i will go with sellection 1. But how will this effect a future upgrade to 2 gigs of RAM? Obviously 'Dual' mean's '2', so what the deal here? Sell the sticks in a few months and get 2 gig sticks, or buy 2 more of those twinX ones (4 in total). What happens when you have 4 sticks in a 'dual memory' motherboard?

I guess the Value ones won't work as 'dual' memory, no? I quote like the idea of 2 gigs.

Now i have to decide if i get 2 gig's of vaulue or 1 gig decent 'dual' memory

[Mark@SCAN]

The motherboard you are thinking of purchasing has 4 RAM slots so you could use any of the memory suggested thus having all 4 slots populated with memory. If you wanted to purchase fast memory now i would probably go with the 1st stick of memory the C2PRO now and then in a few month's buy the same stuff again giving you 2 gig's of fast memory...

U've got a hard choice which i dont envy! either 2gig or memory NOW OR half as much for the time being but a bit quicker!

The choice is yours!

[SilentDeath]

I would go for either

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...roductID=71473

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=118550

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...roductID=75522

If faster memory is of importance too you then i advise going for either of the top 2. If you would prefer more memory i would advise purchasing 2 lots of the 3rd stick of memory. This would give you 2gig of RAM which today isn't really much of a big deal and will help in all of todays games and games due out over the coming year...

This would also be very cheap for 2 gig of RAM and still cheaper that the top 2

Always buy the memory in pairs and NOT single sticks of memory. If you are purchasing either a Venice OR San Diago core CPU these BOTH have updated memory controllers on which BOTH support running 4 sticks of memory upto 1gig @ PC3200/DDR400

Hope this helps and clears some things up for you

Thanks

Buying in pairs is a marketing gimmick.

Buying seperatly just means making sure its the same stuff - meaning the same chips.

Brand does not matter either - many brands use the same chips.

Mixing different types of chips for example BH-5 and TCCD will likely not overclock as well but if its good ram anyway there is not going to be any major problems with it and it will easly run at 200fsb as required.

All AMD64 memory controlers will be able to run ram at 200mhz at rated timings *IF* it is set at 2T. no amd64 chip is yet capable of 1T. That is the ONLY issue with 4 sticks.

[StormPC]

A single 1gb stick will overclock better than two 512mb sticks - or atleast be limited less by the memory controler

I personaly would save the dual channel action for later on when you need to upgrade - unless you dont intend to need more ram untill everything moves to DDR2.

On second thoughts, dual channel would probably be more important than having to run 2T later on, so 2x512mb may infact be better.

May in fact be better? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

He's upgrading right now! HELLO? He's buying a S939 platform and you advise him to run single channel? That's rediculous!!! Why not buy S754 then?

Oh, and there is no such thing as dual channel memory really. If you run 2 DIMMs in the correct slots on any system with a dual channel memory controller (no matter where it is physically located) it will run dual channel.

Dual channel pairs is not a gimmick any more than a 3000+, 3200+, 3500+ and 3800+ Venus is a gimmick. If you buy a dual channel kit there is a much better chance of high overclocks than if you buy two singles, just as it is very likely a 3800+ Venus will clock higher than a 3000+ Venus. With overclocking it is not a sure thing, you just increase your odds by purchasing the expensive parts.

[autopilot]

Ok, but what happenes when you have 4 DIMM of identical memory in a dual memory board. You see dual meens 2 last time i checked.

So does that mean you have a quad memory system -OR- two lots of DIMMs running as two dual pairs? -OR- does the whole dual thing go out of the window, just leaving you with 2 gigs of memory running at normal non-dual speeds????

[SilentDeath]

May in fact be better? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

He's upgrading right now! HELLO? He's buying a S939 platform and you advise him to run single channel? That's rediculous!!! Why not buy S754 then?

Oh, and there is no such thing as dual channel memory really. If you run 2 DIMMs in the correct slots on any system with a dual channel memory controller (no mater where it is physically located) it will run dual channel.

Dual channel pairs is not a gimmick any more than a 3000+, 3200+, 3500+ and 3800+ Venus is a gimmick. If you buy a dual channel kit there is a much better chance of high overclocks than if you buy two singles, just as it is very likely a 3800+ Venus will clock higher than a 3000+ Venus. With overclocking it is not a sure thing, you just increase your odds by purchasing the expensive parts.

Yes well I forgot about DC which is obviously very important. that was a mistake in my earlyer posting.

Where I said "A single 1gb stick will overclock better than two 512mb sticks - or atleast be limited less by the memory controler "
I did not mean overall performance, but overclock. Obvoiusly irrelevant if performance is lower anyway..

Paired memorydoesnt mean its going to be any better. The ones you get can be matched pair of crap performing sticks. Its still partly a game of luck.

[StormPC]

Ok, but what happenes when you have 4 DIMM of identical memory in a dual memory board. You see dual meens 2 last time i checked.

So does that mean you have a quad memory system -OR- two lots of DIMMs running as two dual pairs? -OR- does the whole dual thing go out of the window, just leaving you with 2 gigs of memory running at normal non-dual speeds????

No, it means you have multiple banks in dual channel. Dual channel has nothing to do with the DIMMs themselves. DDR is DDR. It's the memory controller that the term "dual channel" is pertaining to. Dual channel also has nothing to do with the speed of the memory itself, just the way it is utilized by the system. You can run DDR400 (PC3200) at 200MHz x 2 in a single channel or dual channel system (and any other speed memory as well). I run my DDR400 Corsair Twinx at DDR498 speed on a dual channel, dual core X2. So some high quality memory is able to run at much higher than rated speeds.

For most people 2x512MB DIMMs is the best all-around configuration. Many overclockers would prefer 2X256MB, and some power-users could be better served by 2GB+. 1GB (in the form of 2X512MB DIMMs) is probably your best bet for an A64.