DDR what way to go

[Planetside]

Hello guys as you can see im new so PLS dont cute me hard lol
Any way guys im setting up a new pc and realy realy nead some help with the ram the stuff that im getting are

(MB) Abit NF7 v2.0 nForce2 / Abit NF7-S v2.0 nForce2 dont no what one to get

(CPU) AMD ATHLON XP 2500+ 333FSB SKT-A OEM BARTON AQZFA

NAW THE FUN PART
(RAM)
(1)1Gb kit DDR PC3200 Premier Dual Channel - OCZ£178 CL2.5-3-3-7 2T

(2)1Gb kit EL DDR PC-3200 Platinum Dual Channel - OCZ£214 CL 2-2-3-5 1T 4.5ns

(3)1Gb kit DDR PC-3500 Dual Channel - GeIL Golden Dragon£205 4.5ns CL2,6-3-3 1T

(4)1Gb kit DDR PC-3500 Dual Channel EL - OCZ£239 4.5ns CL2
so as you can see im going mad trying to work out whats the best 1 to go for i will be overclocking and trying to get a good FSB
i all ready have a 9800 pro wating for this set up so PLS guys help me out thanks

[Austin]

Sorry to complicate you more but I'd go with TwinMOS myself closely followed by Adata and Crucial. I dislike Geil, their early stuff was essentially PC2100 overvolted to crap and sold as PC2700-3200. OCZ have a bad past too, so I avoid them, seem more popular now though. I've never heard of EL ... is that a brand? Anyway no need for 'matched pairs' nor 'low latency', just buy 2 of the same sticks and you're sweet for Dual Channel fun. No need fo ranything more than PC3200 on SktA as even 400FSB is more than it needs, still if you want to push PC3500+ will ensure the RAM is not a limiting factor. Abit NF7-S v2.0 is known to be the best o/c'er.

[luke313]

EL = Enhanced Latency.

[Planetside]

thanks for getting back to me i was going to go with TwinMos but the last lot i hade was realy realy bad M TEC chip set
(I've never heard of EL ... is that a brand?)
yer its OCZ EL
i dont realy wont to spend so much on the ram but i realy wont to no that my setup is not going to let me down as i hade 1 hell of a time with my old rig.
All so i have just got a radeon 9800 pro so i wont the best i can get for under £400 pounds i can get the Twinmos 1 Gb 2x512 for only £136 including VAT and POST 1/3 days

[Austin]

TwinMOS RAM should have TwinMOS branded stick and RAM chips ... if you had M-TEC printed anywhere on it you were most liekly buying some generic manu's RAM stick with TwinMOS chips attached to it (I'm guessing). Anyway just thought I'd throw in some prices for you ...

Crucial PC3200 CL3.0 £35, 512MB £63.
CPUcity TwinMOS PC3200 CL2.5: 256MB £34, 512MB £68.
CPUcity TwinMOS PC3700 CL2.5: 256MB £53, 512MB £105.
(Komplett about the same pricing)

You do get free P&P from Crucial and lifetime warranty (as Russ points out). Biggest downside seems the latency, we haven't seen CL3.0 since SDR days. Latency is way overplayed and even less important in Dual Channel setups, I'm not sure what effect it would have on overall perf but fastest vs slowest is usually only 1-2% in overall perf. Full list ...

Crucial PC3200 CL3.0 512MB £63.

TwinMOS PC3200 CL2.5 512MB £68.

OCZ Premier PC3200 CL2.5 512MB £89

TwinMOS PC3700 CL2.5 512MB £105.

OCZ EL PC3200 CL2.0 512MB £107

Geil GD PC3500 CL2(.0?) 512MB £103

OCZ EL PC3500 CL2(.0?) 512MB £120

[G4Z]

whats the deal with dual channel then? I can stick DDR 3200 in my board (MSI KT4 ULtra) I only have PC2100 atm and I wanna buy some 3200, do I need two sticks... or what?

[Austin]

To use Dual Channel you need a mobo which impliments it, on SktA that means most of the nForce2. The theory is that instead of just running 1-3 sticks of RAM on their own Channel as done previously you assign the RAM to 2 seperate (and intelligent) RAM controllers which work in unison to effectively give double the RAM throughput, so it's 2x3200MB/s instead of 1x3200MB/s (for PC3200 RAM). SktA really doesn't need all that bandwidth so gains are pretty small, 5% or so ... P4 begs for (and needs) as much FSB and RAM throughput as possible so Dual Channel gives big rewards there.

You have a mobo based on the KT400 (yes?) and that means you can't do Dual Channel, in fact you are marginally faster with a single stick of RAM. You may find small gains by running the RAM faster than the FSB (5%ish) but I think you can only do that in 266FSB mode anyway. KT400 is certified for 333FSB operation so all you NEED for that is PC2700, you may wish to use PC3200 if you want to o/c but as the PCI/AGP/IDE will run out of spec you may struggle around 380FSB (still under PC3200). Does that help? If not post your spec and I'll (or we'll) try to do better.

[liquid-fix]

Just a comment, not a lot to do with RAM, GEt the NF7-S i got the NF7 and wished i had spend the little extra to get the sata firewire and soundstorm (i didnt know about this little feature)
Fix

[Planetside]

guys i can get 1GB of TWINMOSS DDR pc3200 with twinmos chips for £126 including VAT
but will this ram be ok with the Abit NF7-S v2.0 nForce2 and
AMD ATHLON XP 2500+ 333FSB SKT-A OEM BARTON AQZFA
if so will the ram beable to run @ say 215 fsb x11

[KAIN]

If you want cheap got with Twinmos, Crucial or Adata. If you want guarantees, go with Muskin, OCZ, Geil or Corsair.

I personally like buying the guranteed sticks now, unless I hear of a good generic like the BH5 Adata of old.

Erm Twinmos use ram from all over the place not just their own, their newest stuff is branded Twinmos but previously they have used Samsung, Winbond, MTEC, Hynix allsorts of different memory producers.

If you are going over 400mhz at tight timings you want decent memory otherwise go with the cheap stuff, which should do the speed just at lower timings.

[Planetside]

OK THANKS
i realy wont to go with the.
1Gb kit EL DDR PC-3200 Platinum Dual Channel - OCZ£214 CL 2-2-3-5 1T 4.5ns. ARE THE .1Gb kit DDR PC-3500 Dual Channel - GeIL Golden Dragon£205 4.5ns CL2,6-3-3 1T / 1Gb kit DDR PC-3500 Dual Channel EL - OCZ£239 4.5ns CL2.
But for JUST that bit more MONEY i can get this lot ----------> 1 GB DDR3200 TWINMOSS Dual Channel Kit £132.43
AMD ATHLON XP 2500+ 333FSB SKT-A OEM BARTON AQZFA £65.80
ABIT NF7-S V2.0 £79.31 and it all comes to £277.54
so i realy dont no what to do i wont a setup thats not going to crap out when it come to overclocking

[Austin]

Originally posted by Planetside
guys i can get 1GB of TWINMOSS DDR pc3200 with twinmos chips for £126 including VAT
but will this ram be ok with the Abit NF7-S v2.0 nForce2 and
AMD ATHLON XP 2500+ 333FSB SKT-A OEM BARTON AQZFA
if so will the ram beable to run @ say 215 fsb x11

If you buy PC3200 it is only certified to run at 400mhz but most branded stuff will get you a little more, certainly with a little extra voltage. If you want to be guaranteed of exceeding 400FSB you will need PC3500 or better. Do be careful how much you pay ...

* There's no need for 'matched pairs' nor 'certified for Dual Channel' stuff, just buy 2 sticks of the same RAM.

* There's no need for low latency, diffs are absolutely tiny anyway and not worth any more cash.

* Even 400FSB is simply more than SktA needs so paying extra to push 420FSB+ is good for little more than bragging rights and IMHO comes nowhere near worth running the mobo (or PC3200) above its guaranteed spec.

Originally posted by Planetside
so i realy dont no what to do i wont a setup thats not going to crap out when it come to overclocking

Seriously don't worry about that, we're all just nit-picking really. Any PC3200 is not going to restrict your o/c, if you want the extra 0.1%(ish) from exceeding 400FSB and/or using low latency then expect to pay more. I think the bottom line is, so long as you stay to branded (ie not who's that RAM) you'll be more than fine.

[KAIN]

I have to disagree on the first two points, the matched pairs I have bought recently have run significantly faster as a pair at tighter timmings than the single "identical" sitkcs I've bought.

I will repost what I tested on a previous thread about memory timings, high latency makes a significant difference. This was done using Pifast, which is more affected by CPU speed than memory timings or speed. But as shown here 7% on a test like that is fairly significant in my eyes.

Ok ran the test

2500 (12.5*200 2-2-2-5)



2500 (12.5*200 2.5-3-3-7)



That's only on a short test, I could do 3dmark and SETI but I can't be bothered this second

Looks around 7% to me, which is nothing to complain about merely from changing some timings.

It depends on how far past 200 you want to exceed it, as if the choice is 200*11 or 220*10 you would probably see around about a 10% increase in speed that are affected by memory bandwidth.

Sorry Austin I am really not picking on you at all, just I have tested A LOT of memory recently due to building a few systems and found some startling differences.

[Planetside]

ok thats cool like i side the thing that put me of going with TWINMOSS was the fact the last lot i hade had MTEC chips and it suckt big time would not do 200fsb @ all the most i was able to get was 180fsb and that was it.

[Planetside]

mm ok so would you guys say its down to

1GB of TWINMOSS DDR pc3200 with twinmos chips for £126 including VAT
are would you say pay that extra bit more and get.
1Gb kit DDR PC-3500 Dual Channel - GeIL Golden Dragon£205 4.5ns CL2,6-3-3 1T

[KAIN]

As I said depends how far you want to push it and at tight timings.

I mean that Geil is guaranteed to do 217mhz FSB @ Cas 2-6-3-3-1t

The Twinmos is guranteed to do 200mhz @ Cas2.5-3-3-7-2t

The Twinmos I've bought lately couldn't do Cas2 over 200mhz, don't know whether I've just been unlucky. But it just didn't like it, could not get fully prime stable.