E6600 build, come share your suggestions with me.

[shaithis]

The OCZ Gold RAM is a good choice, took a while before Asus got the BIOS updates out but the RAM sings now

Looking at the order code for the RAM, I noticed you are looking at OcUK......you may regret that in the future...

[Indi75]

It's ok, it's all coming from Scan except the GPU. I can't find a decent affordable card on Scan that vents out of the case, so that will come from Overclockers.

I just used Overclockers for the quicker search method.

This is the first time I've really noticed Scan being better on price. It's also the first time I've noticed how utterly shocking e-buyer has become.

[shaithis]

nvm

[blueball]

Thanks Clunk, had noticed that a lot of Mesh/Scan bundles had the 6400 4-4-4-12. So might well go for that.

Does the lower Bus Speed not matter?

Also, if I may be so bold, why the P5B? It seemed an older board? You do mean the Asus P5B Deluxe?

Don't bother withth e 4-4-4-12. I bought it and it doesn't run at that speed by default - you have to up the voltage to 2.1 volts to get 4-4-4-12 and I really didn't see much speed improvement - not as much as clocking it a 900MHz gave anyway. The SPD defaults to 5-5-5-18!!!!!!!

I wish I had saved some money and just bought the 5-5-5-15 stuff anyway

[Clunk]

i have the 5-5-5-12 stuff and that also has a 5-5-5-18 spd setting. i think it 4-4-4 and the 5-5-5 ram are the same. just labelled differently, the ones i have are good for 900mhz+. last time i looked, the 5-5-5 ones were out of stock, but the prices were very similar to the 4-4-4 ones, but that was a few weeks ago.

[Indi75]

Surely the CAS5's are slower, no?

At this rate i'll end up going with Corsair Value Select 2x1GB PC4200 and being done with it. At least thats 2GB for £150.

This is really confusing me now. It's as if there's no point buying decent RAM?

What sort of performance difference am I to expect?

[jimborae]

Don't bother withth e 4-4-4-12. I bought it and it doesn't run at that speed by default - you have to up the voltage to 2.1 volts to get 4-4-4-12 and I really didn't see much speed improvement - not as much as clocking it a 900MHz gave anyway. The SPD defaults to 5-5-5-18!!!!!!!

I wish I had saved some money and just bought the 5-5-5-15 stuff anyway

Low latencies don't affect the Intel platform the way they did on AMD platforms. So no you wont really notice an increase in speed from lower latency ram. What it does do is allow you to do is overclock the ram to higher speeds/greater bandwidth where you may see some gains.

[jimborae]

Surely the CAS5's are slower, no?

At this rate i'll end up going with Corsair Value Select 2x1GB PC4200 and being done with it. At least thats 2GB for £150.

This is really confusing me now. It's as if there's no point buying decent RAM?

What sort of performance difference am I to expect?

See post above.

As other people have stated you can go down the route of value ram and just use the divider. If you do I can confirm that Crucial DDR2 5300 CL5 works very well in this board and overclocks like a champ.

[Clunk]

Surely the CAS5's are slower, no?

At this rate i'll end up going with Corsair Value Select 2x1GB PC4200 and being done with it. At least thats 2GB for £150.

This is really confusing me now. It's as if there's no point buying decent RAM?

What sort of performance difference am I to expect?

the chances are, that you can get the 5-5-5-15 stuff and easily run it at 4-4-4-12, but there will be virtually no noticable difference to you, so go for the cheaper one.

[nvening]

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=373995

get those fans or the 2000 version for greater air flow.

[shaithis]

I personally don't understand why people say the fast RAM isn't better.


Depending on the task, there can be a very noticable difference for me depending on how I clock my CPU, which is why I am currently running it at 7 x 466FSB (needs RAM to run at 933MHz).

The other option to get to my rated speed is 9 x 360 (ish)......a number of benchmarks and real-world apps are noticably slower with this setting.

[Clunk]

I personally don't understand why people say the fast RAM isn't better.


Depending on the task, there can be a very noticable difference for me depending on how I clock my CPU, which is why I am currently running it at 7 x 466FSB (needs RAM to run at 933MHz).

The other option to get to my rated speed is 9 x 360 (ish)......a number of benchmarks and real-world apps are noticably slower with this setting.

at 4-4-4-12 instead of 5-5-5-15?

Ive tried both and personally, cant see any real world difference in anything ive tried. what applications have you seen differences in, and at what settings? (not benchmarks)

[Indi75]

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=373995

get those fans or the 2000 version for greater air flow.

Very nice fans indeed, but they are rated at 19DB, whereas the NorthQ's are rated at 12-17. That said, these run at 1000rpm which is nice and slow, i'll have a look for the 2000 ones and see what thier spec's like. Cheers.

[Indi75]

Thanks for that Jimborae, I'm ordering today and going with the XMS2 TwinX 6400.

I know I could just run the PC4200 in there, but for the minimal differenc in price, will move away from Value Select for this build and mingle with the big kids .

[kevpuk]

If you do go with the Asus p5w-dh then DO NOT get the Geil ram, the board doesn't really like it. It's fine at stock speeds but once you start to overclock it causes problems.

Must say that I have Geil pc6400 Ultra and it has run well for me at up to 890MHz @ 4-4-4-12.......that said, I think it may be my Orthos stumbling block....... .......