New build from Scan question..

[atmadden]

Crucial Ballistix is no longer made from Micron D9 chips. They have changed the chips to cheaper stuff and the prices have fallen quite drammatically now. This has been confirmed by new people buying ballistix on xtreme systems forums and they no longer overclock any good.

Have you a link for this info? I can't find anywhere that says this. Crucial are owned by Micron.

[Bhavv]

Have you a link for this info? I can't find anywhere that says this. Crucial are owned by Micron.

Ah never mind.

They still use Micron D9, but the two letters after the D9 vary. They are using a cheaper type of Micron D9 on some sticks now, it still overclocks, but doesnt get anywhere near 1200 Mhz if you're unlucky enough to get the cheaper ones:

Ballistix PC8500 - Page 28 - XtremeSystems Forums

Theres loads of people on this thread getting different stuff and hugely varying results on their Crucial ram now.

They just use different types of Micron chips basically.

But anyway, Scan dont stock Crucial ram either

[atmadden]

So you just made it up then or are you trying to get your post count up? This could just as likely happen with any brands as crucial and micron are the same company. They could be supplying the other brands you have quoted with the other D9's! I had a pair of crucial ballistix D9GMH that were awful clockers so it does happen even with them.

[Bhavv]

So you just made it up then or are you trying to get your post count up? This could just as likely happen with any brands as crucial and micron are the same company. They could be supplying the other brands you have quoted with the other D9's! I had a pair of crucial ballistix D9GMH that were awful clockers so it does happen even with them.

No it was previously thought that they were no longer using Micron D9's because they were overclocking badly. Then people started started taking the heatspreaders off to check and they found different versions of Micron D9.

So Micron D9 chips dont always overclock good now. Its a hit or miss gamble when buying them if you want to overclock.

[Bhavv]

Ok, I found where I read that Ballistix no longer use Micron D9:

New Version Ballistix PC2-8500 Review - XtremeSystems Forums

there you go. You can choose whether or not you want to believe it. Some people do, some people dont. But Ballistix prices on overclockers have fallen sharply in the last couple of weeks.

Some people cant even get the new stuff past 1000 Mhz.

And also in this post here it shows two other hexus users that actually told me they dont use D9's anymore:

http://forums.hexus.net/scan-care-he...cts-us-49.html

So you just made it up then or are you trying to get your post count up?

Yea, I just bother to read around about everything I possibly can and post constructive posts or opinions just for +1 post

But nothing is spam so watcha gonna do?

[nerdgeek]

OK thanks for that about the RAM, I will look into the OCZ and G.Skill ones...

If I wasn't going to overclock the RAM (just the CPU) and I was going to use the PC jsut for gaming on an XP Pro x32 machine would I be better with

2 GB of PC8500 RAM
Or
4 GB of PC6400 RAM ???

Also the Zalman heatsink I choose on reviews that I have seen but I'm now unsure if this will fit on the Abit ip35 Pro board because of the built in heatsinks !?

I was trying to save money on the HDD and max out my budget on the rest, but if I go with the 2GB RAM of PC8500 I will save about £30 so I can get the Samsung 500GB one.

Thanks again guys

Thanks guys

[nerdgeek]

Thanks for all your help guys.... I am confused with one last thing which I hope someone can help with....

I keep reading that both of the following boards are the better ones to get for quads and DDR2 for the price but I have no idea with which one to get:

Asus P5K Premium
Abit IP35 Pro

I am edging towards the Abit one but worried about the heatsinks that arn't attached properly !

[mortgagemanmike]

You can just use a seperate partition for windows which is what I do.

Oh please God no......


BAD idea. Seperate drive is the best way. I know a bit about building PCs and have always build my own for the last 10 years - I dont claim to know everything, but I thought this was a basic that everyone knew.........just having one drive with a seperate O/S partition is just a big no-no as far as im concerned.

[mortgagemanmike]

Thanks for all your help guys.... I am confused with one last thing which I hope someone can help with....

I keep reading that both of the following boards are the better ones to get for quads and DDR2 for the price but I have no idea with which one to get:

Asus P5K Premium
Abit IP35 Pro

I am edging towards the Abit one but worried about the heatsinks that arn't attached properly !

Of those two boards I would go with the P5K

[Oldjim]

Oh please God no......


BAD idea. Seperate drive is the best way. I know a bit about building PCs and have always build my own for the last 10 years - I dont claim to know everything, but I thought this was a basic that everyone knew.........just having one drive with a seperate O/S partition is just a big no-no as far as im concerned.

Would you like to justify that statement.
Given that the newer hard drives are far bigger than is needed for the operating system you either have a load of wasted space or you fill it up with something else - either way a backup of the OS becomes much more difficult.
My preference is to partition the main drive in 3 sections - operating system followed by swap file and then finally data. I then have a separate hard drive which is used for backup of documents etc. and the operating system (using Acronis)

[mortgagemanmike]

Contiguos (sp) free space for starters.

Then theres the issue of not being able to boot in the event of sever error on the boot sector or damanged clusters etc...something that happened to someone I know just a couple of weeks ago. Lost everything - the drive could not be booted *at all* even in another PC or with trying partition re-organisation. Thats reason enough for me!

I keep a small drive for my O/S - 200GB - and install some programs on it, but keep all data files on the second, larger drive.

Partitioning is ok - but it doesnt safeguard your data as much as having a seperate drive for it. IMO. Its ok when your talking about the software side of things and protecting data, but not the physical aspect.

[Disturbedguy]

If the drive fails to boot, and its just the OS portion, format the OS portion, that way you dont lose everything on the drive..just the OS..

[Oldjim]

and if the second hard drive fails you have lost all your data
As I said in my original post backup your data to a second hard drive - in my case this is done automatically every day using SyncToy

[mortgagemanmike]

and if the second hard drive fails you have lost all your data
As I said in my original post backup your data to a second hard drive - in my case this is done automatically every day using SyncToy

Well yeah...not really a valid argument against it tho since one drive is just as likeyley to fail as any other, but I believe the O/S drive is more likely to have problems than a data only drive.

At the end of the day I guess we all just do what we think is best for our own systems, I just didnt realise so many people did seperate O/S partitions!