Is this RAM really worth the money?

[yamangman]

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=276359


I know it's quick, but i'm not paying the premium just for the flashy lights am I? Are there any alternatives like this for cheaper?


Cheers

[ExceededGoku]

Thats the best RAM on Scan tbh, it has high capacity, reasonably good latencies and high bandwidth. Worth every penny and you get flashing lights on the top

[Agent]

What system are you planning to use it in ? overclocking ?

Generaly speaking, if its a A64 system, you'll be running it on a divider anyway (plus memory bandwidth isnt really important on A64's to much of an extent).
The difference between getting this, and say some direct from Crucial isnt huge. The cost : performance ratio is just silly.

[yamangman]

Looking at the crucial ballistix stuff on their website, they don't appear to do any 2gb kits at PC4000. infact not any 2GB kits at all.

[Agent]

Whats wrong with 2*1GiB sticks ?
Why do you want PC4000 rated RAM ? - If you are running it in a A64 system, there is no point running RAM at that speed, dispite 'bragging rights'.

[ExceededGoku]

it sounds like he wants to overclock the CPU without changing the RAM divider. I agree with the A64s not needing bandwidth but they need good fast latencies and that looks like exactly what this RAM will give you. And it leaves you alot of room to overclock the RAM/CPU etc.

[Artic_Kid]

Why do you want PC4000 rated RAM ? - If you are running it in a A64 system, there is no point running RAM at that speed, despite 'bragging rights'.

Can someone explain that to me? I must be missing something, because I'm seeing reviews where they use memory like this (PC4000, with an overclocking A64 mobo) and it gives faster speeds.

[Zak33]

Can someone explain that to me? I must be missing something, because I'm seeing reviews where they use memory like this (PC4000, with an overclocking A64 mobo) and it gives faster speeds.

have you seen the benchmark improvements? In actual real life speed increases? It's not a huge, mahoosize improvement. Because the ram runs on a divider anyway, you are alreay knocking the ram speeds down to get them to the bus speed of the cpu. You ARE getting extra bandwidth WITHIN the confines of the ram subsystem, but not outside of it. (hope that is worded well enough)

I think what Agent is saying is that for the extra dough, it's not truely worthy of the money. Not when you could buy something else with the extra dough and see a REAL speed improvement.

[yamangman]

Whats wrong with 2*1GiB sticks ?

There arn't any. If they had 1Gb modules they'd be able to provide 2x1Gb wouldn't they Either that or i've spectacularly missed them.

[yamangman]

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?

[yamangman]

Ok how about this, I post some screens of what my current setup is like, I explain what I want, and someone can perhaps feed me a link to a product or two, I'd be very grateful.

The main reason is I want to upgrade to 2Gb (2*1Gb), secondary is to get some fairly speedy RAM.

Here's my current overclock and ram timings:



Any suggestions?

[TooNice]

You can probably run 1T without compromising system stability on your current setup. You'll see a speed boost.

PC3500 is rated at 433 right? It's still not guaranteed to hit the 535Mhz to go 1:1 on your system. Basically, would this RAM be faster than value RAM? Yes. Decent value? Absolutely not. You expect to pay a premium for the best, and here you are paying 100% more for 10% more performance...

[BUFF]

Looking at the crucial ballistix stuff on their website, they don't appear to do any 2gb kits at PC4000.

They had too many problems with it & withdrew the 1GB PC4000 DIMMs

[yamangman]

PC3500 is rated at 433 right? It's still not guaranteed to hit the 535Mhz to go 1:1 on your system.

Yea I understand that, my original thinking was I wouldnt mind lessening my overclock a little. I thought 1t meant that there was 1 tansistor for every capacitor, and therefore you need 1t RAM to run this succesfully?


What I'm really looking for is suggestions to alternatives, have you got any?

[Artic_Kid]

PC3500 is rated at 433 right? It's still not guaranteed to hit the 535Mhz to go 1:1 on your system. Basically, would this RAM be faster than value RAM? Yes. Decent value? Absolutely not. You expect to pay a premium for the best, and here you are paying 100% more for 10% more performance...

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?)

Doesn't that also mean that you want to choose your memory and CPU chips both with your intended over-clocking in mind?

Due to the locked multiplier on the non-FX AMD chips, if you pick memory that is too fast for your CPU, then your money can go largely to waste (because the CPU will not be able to use the full advantage of your fast memory).

But not the other way around. That is, if you choose a fast CPU and slow memory, your money will not go to waste (because you will be able to clock each one suitably to reach their optimal speed).

[TooNice]

Yea I understand that, my original thinking was I wouldnt mind lessening my overclock a little.

Not worth it IMO. I don't have a link anymore, but this was tested a few times. Clockspeed is king. More often than not, it is worth going with using a lower divider to get extra mhz.
Of course, faster memory will allow you to use a divider closer to 1:1 (if you reach it) while maintaining your max overclock. But the benefit is not that high even then.

Artic_Kid: With a multiplier of 9x that the OP has, you need superb RAM to be able to run 1:1 while going for the max overclock. It is quite unlikely for the RAM to be "wasted" although the cost of the faster RAM is not necessarily sensible.