1t 2t memory timings asus sli deluxe mobo

Hi i just bought some crucial ballistix 2*512 pc4000 dual channel ram ive been playing about with the timings and seeing how far I can push the speed. I noticed in my Motherboards bios (a8n-sli deluxe + latest bios) 1T 2T memory timing. Its defaulted to 2 and the boards works fine.

I switched it down to 1T and the board refused to post when my RAM is clocked high.

amd 64 3200 oc'd 255 * 9 = 2.3 ghz
Crucial Ballistix pc4000 oc'd 510 Mhz

I suppose my question is what does the 1T 2T timings mean and should my RAM support it?

thanks in advance

1T means that commands are given one cycle to be carried out, 2T means they are given two cycles.

If you only give it 1 cycle, you have to be very sure you will have all the data back properly in time - the faster your ram is going (cycles per second, or hz) the less likely it is going to be able to do this.

1T is worth perhaps 20mhz of increase in memory speed, but that's only memory speed, not cpu speed as well. If you wanted to run 1T you will have to drop your memory speed down, you could do this by using a divider so that the memory runs at a lower speed than your processor, or by dropping the whole system speed. The increase you get from going 1T would IMO be cancelled out by doing either of these, and in any case would only amount to 1 or 2 extra fps even in a best case senario, so my advice would be leave it as is.

Ballistix is dire at high clock speed, but from personal experience (i have the same ram) you want to drop the divider so its sat around 230/240 ish (you might not have a 5/6 divider, so youll have to make do with 210 ish, but im pretty certain your ram is limiting your overclock anyway) and then you should be able to set the timings as tight as you possibly can and it will be faster.

cheers for the replies guys. i'll have a go and see how it compares to my current setup. Im getting good boosts in games and 3ds max rendering so im pretty happy.

I wouldnt say the ram is restricitng my overclcock. Ive got the ram up to DDR600 when i use 3.0 volts and pretty slack timings.

what are the best benchmarking tools for RAM and CPU?

Try Sandra for memory I/O bandwidth benchmarking. This way you can see if lower speed with 1t timings is better than higher speeds with 2t timings.

http://www.sisoftware.net/

hi again. well after a couple of days benching ive found that with SANDRA I get alot better results with 2T timing and high clock speeds compared to 1T timing with lower clock speeds.

In gaming I get a similar result but nothing to shout about, 2T + high clock speeds are producing better minimum FPS speeds in FEAR, COD 2 and Quake 4.

the problem im having is try to get decent clock speeds when im using 1T timings. I cant make my rig post at my rams rated ddr500 no matter what timings I set or cpu mutliplier. Best ive achieved is 220 htt * 10.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to overclock with 1T timings?

Do I need to play about with the chipset voltage at all?

I'm not certain that Ballistix is actually rated to do DDR500 @1T
Interestingly they don't seem to be tested on A64 either
http://www.crucial.com/uk/ballistix/...ublished_specs

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gazzy

hi again. well after a couple of days benching ive found that with SANDRA I get alot better results with 2T timing and high clock speeds compared to 1T timing with lower clock speeds.

In gaming I get a similar result but nothing to shout about, 2T + high clock speeds are producing better minimum FPS speeds in FEAR, COD 2 and Quake 4.

the problem im having is try to get decent clock speeds when im using 1T timings. I cant make my rig post at my rams rated ddr500 no matter what timings I set or cpu mutliplier. Best ive achieved is 220 htt * 10.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to overclock with 1T timings?

Do I need to play about with the chipset voltage at all?

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I have the A8N SLi board with some G.Skill PC4400 memory and most I can do is 220-230 with 1T.
With 2T I can go upto 292 1:1 with the Opty 146 @ 292 x 10 (Prime Stable). Boots at 3.05Ghz but not prime stable ... yet :)

I reckon its the board. Come on Asus... sort out a Bios update.