Is this RAM really worth the money?

[NightshadowUK]

Ding ding anyone?

[Agent]

So Agent, what you're saying is running the memory at a fraction of the overclocked CPU fsb will result in a negligble performance impact, and therefore should go with standard PC3200? What about the 1t tech in that RAM? Any great gains there?

Thats exactly what im saying
A64's are not memory bandwidth starved due to the genius way that the hyper transport system works. Back in the old day where everything ran on the FSB, it did make a difference (especially running your CPU and memory at 1:1).
Its like putting formula 1 grade tyres on a standard car. In a few, small circumstances, it might hold to the road better, but on the whole, due to the cost of them - its a waste.

You expect to pay a premium for the best, and here you are paying 100% more for 10% more performance...

Couldn’t have said it better myself, although i think 10% is being generous for most situations

Say you intend to over-clock your memory and CPU both by 10% (and you purchase memory and CPU suitable for that), then wouldn't that give a 10% speed-up? (Likewise for 20%, 30%, and so forth?)

Not always. Just because something is overclocked 10%, this doesn’t always lead into a direct increase of performance by 10%.
You'll only get increases like that if the thing you’re overclocking is the bottleneck.


Clock speed is king on the A64’s. Running your memory on a divider to get a higher raw CPU speed will provide better results.

[Zak33]

beautifully worded....
/wanders off to dream of 165's

[TooNice]

Couldn’t have said it better myself, although i think 10% is being generous for most situations

Agreed. It can go higher (about as often as it can do less than 5%), but is more often than not between 5-10% unless we are dealing with memory intensive benchmarks.

@yamangman: I noticed that I did not reply part of your post. 1T is usually possible as long as you are not running with more than 2 DIMM. The performance you get in benchmark is pretty decent, for every day application, it is probably less significant.

[Artic_Kid]

Breaking the 2DIMM barrier @ 1T --

I've heard that you need high end memory if you want to run 1T with 4GiB of memory. (Something about going past the 2 DIMM barrier into 4 DIMMs makes a big difference.) I intend to go to 4GiB (4DIMMS) sometime (down the road) after I get my new rig, so I want to get the right kind of 2GiB memory now so I'll be ready. What kind of 2GiB memory kit would I need now, so that I can add another (of the same kit) later and still have 1T operation at PC3200 (at least, if not higher)?

[Artic_Kid]

I've heard that you need high performance (expensive) memory if you want to run 1T with 4GiB of memory. (Something about going past the 2 DIMM barrier into 4 DIMMs makes a big difference.) I intend to go to 4GiB (4DIMMS) sometime down the road after I get my new rig, so I want to get the right kind of 2GiB memory now so I'll be ready. What kind of 2GiB memory kit would I need now, so that I can add another (of the same kit) later and still have 1T operation at DDR400 (if not higher)?

[TooNice]

*Shrug* - I wasn't aware you could use 1T with 4 DIMM regardless of the memory.

[BUFF]

*Shrug* - I wasn't aware you could use 1T with 4 DIMM regardless of the memory.

you can if
1) it's 4 single-sided DIMMs
2) you are running 4 dual-sided DIMMs @333 (iirc but certainly slower)
3) you are running 1 of the very few ( couple of DFIs) boards that claim to be able to do 4 double-sided at DDR400 1T

In real world apps (not e.g. Sandra) the difference between 1T & 2T performance is only a couple of %