General memory questions

[Merlin]

Hey everyone,
I am sure some of you are thinking I am dense because I keep asking memory questions but I seem to be getting different answers fron different people. I hope someone can help me sort out what I grasp so far and clarify where I got it wrong. From what I understand it is a very good idea to use a matched pair of DIMMS in a dual channel setting but I am not sure why. If Corsair is a prescision manufacturer, which I gather they are, one would think that all PC3200 DIMMS are certified to run at the specified speeds. Further one would think that , if you are setting the speeds in BIOS, the two DIMMS on a Dual channel board will run at the same speed because BIOS tells them to. Secondly I see a lot of you are running PC4000 RAM on a board that is running a FSB of 450 or less. In one of my previous questions somone said that to run a higher speed RAM that the FSB is counter productive because the Mainboards have a sychro feature that tries to match the speed of the RAM to the speed of the CPU. So my question is there any benifit to running PC4000 on a board/cpu that will only run at say 430 FSB? I would think that ,as long as you had enough RAM volume wise there would be not benefit to having RAM that can retrieve/ store data faster that the cpu can process it. And finally there is the speed/ timings issue. I realize that the total memory bandwidth is a factor of the Mhz X the timings. tinings of 2-3-2-5 at 400Mhx does not process as much data as timings of 2.5-3-3-7 at 500Mhz, but I hear a lot of you say that AMD cpus like tight timings and I don't quite understand. All of this is so that I can descide once and for all what memory I need without going overboard. My choices as they stand now are both Corsair. Twinx512-3200C2pt vs. VS1GBKIT400. Quantity vs. Timings. My theory is that if you have ample memory at the fastest speed the cpu can work the you don't need the quantity Twinx512. If I am wrong than the quantity is a little more important VS1GB400KIT. I know this is long but this is it after this no more memory questions!!!!!!!!!

[Bio-Hazard]

It all comes down to what you plan on doing with your system and what type of system you have (AMD or Intel) Each use different speeds of memory due to different FSB's, and if you're going to be OC'ing the system at all...............So let us know what you've got and what you plan on doing with your system......... :twisted: and someone might just beable to help you out............. :D

[Merlin]

AMD XP2800+ Barton (unlocked) I will OC. MSI K7N2-Delta-L, Maxtor 120GB ATA133, Radeon 9600SE, 52X24X52 CD ROM Burner, 8X DVD Burner, Powermax 420W power. Running at FSB 360 right now because memory won't let me go higher. I mostly play games, Never winter nights, KOTOR, CS, MOHAA, but I also do some video editing. I have a 9 month old son (my first) and I am taking lots od video that I plan on making into a short movie. That is why I got the DVD Burner. I figure that the video editing will place a higher demand on RAM but I don't really care if its slow on that job because rendering a movie takes a long time no matter what you do 6+ GIG files take a while no matter what.

[Bio-Hazard]

It's all pretty easy, if you want the higest OC and best performance you'll need to get the higest quality fastest ram you can afford. AMDs work best with tight timings (2,2,2,5 or 11 in some cases) and you won't get that out of cheaper ram. Most value ram gets around 2.5,3,3,7 timings and won't hit as high of a OC at the same voltage as the high end stuff. That does change from one maker to the next though. As a rule the Corsair XMS will do very well in all the AMD systems.
I did get lucky when I bought some Kingmax PC2700 ram, I'm still using it in a OC'd AMD system and it's working fine. The system is a Asus A7N8X MoBo with a AMD 2600XP 266fsb CPU, it's OC'd to 11x200 with the ram in sync. I have gotten the system up to 210x12 with the ram at 2.8 volts. The ram timings at that speed aren't great, but I think that for PC2700 running at that high of a OC 2.5,3,3,11 timings are pretty good. I really like Kingmax ram, and the price is great too........

[infinitevalence]

Im still going to recomend the Kingmax pc4000 hardcore you can get 1gig for $216 its more than fast enough fsb wise and should give good timings at lower frequency.

[Merlin]

Thanks for the input. I am not sure I understand all thge reasons but I hear what your recomendations are, Thanks.

Merlin

[Merlin]

Hey guys,
Maybe I should just address Biohazard and Infinitevalence since they are the only ones interested in this discussion. Ok guys I know that the more money I spend the better the memory I'll get but what I don't understand is that Apotinosis told me that PC2100 running in dual channel is actually faster than PC3200 in single channel and yet someone just said that AMD cpus don't really benefit from dual channel, I beleive the number quoted was 3%. So whaT IS TRUE? One of these statments is false which one? I also know that Apotinosis told me that mached pairs are important in dual channel and Valence said they are not really since the process used to make the RAM is so precise. What is true? If matched pairs are unnecessary for dual channel I can buy 1 stick of 512 now and another later and that way I have no dilema, I simply buy 1 stick of XMS 3200ll now and one later to complete the pair. I can only do it this way if they two sticks bought seperatly will perform as well as a matched pair in dual channel. I guess what I am saying is I don't just want to know what you would buy I want to know from a raw technical standpoint why one way would be better than the other. No offense intended but I know XMS 4000LL would be my best choice if I had the $ What I need to know is from a real " playing the game" standpoint will I be able to actually see the difference between the VS1GBKIT400 and the $175.00 Twinx512-3200LLpt?

[Bio-Hazard]

First off Dual channel on AMD systems does bring you very little, you more than likely won't notice a differance in day to day use, you will see a differance in your benches. And I really don't see the need to buy the matched pair kits either as long as you buy 2 sticks of the same make model and revision number you should be fine. So it would be best to buy them at the same time. On AMD systems it is best to use PC3200 ram as a rule as you normally get tighter timings with them than you would with PC4000. As with anything in the computer world, there are exceptions to every rule. Even Corsair says on their web site that the best ram for a AMD system is their PC3200 ram, so I see no reason to dispute this.
I have 2 OC'd AMD systems, 1 with a matched pair of PC3200 and the other with 2 sticks of OC'd PC2700. If I set both systems to the same settings (timings and OC) they bench pretty much the same (within a few points here and there). I can get a higher OC with the PC3200 with tighter timings as it is much higher quality ram.