Help Me Understand: CPU OC'ing and RAM FSB

Skippman · Post by **Skippman** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 7:27 am

I admit that I've little to no experience overclocking. So some of the fundementals are still foreighn to me. I'm working hard to understand them. That being said I think the key for me to have a good first OC'ing experince is the correct selection of parts for the optimal results. If I know what results I want to achieve in the first place then I can select the most efficent components to achieve that goal.

DMB2000uk was kind enough to gloss over some of this in my other post:

Overhaulling the rig (Read S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is killing my PC!)]

My current concern is RAM selection. Based upon what DMB has said, to achieve my goal of 3.2G on a Conroe E6600 I'll need to set the memory FSB to 400Mhz. I was under the impression then that the RAM I would need should have a 400Mhz rating. According to DMB this is inaccurate. The most efficent RAM for this setup should have an 800Mhz rating as due to DDR2 the system will access the memory twice for every clock cycle making the 400Mhz = 800Mhz

Is this accurate? Also, on RAM timings lower is better correct? I'd prefer to avoid OC'ing my RAM if possible.

Post by **dicecca112** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 8:56 am

yup DMB is right. You would want DDR2-800 Ram or PC2-6400 Ram both are the same and both run at the speed you want.

Tighter timings are better.

Do a google search for Micron D9MGH or Micron D9. Those are the chips that OC the best.

Skippman · Post by **Skippman** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 9:22 am

Dice,

Thanks for answering my post. A quick Google search lead me to the following parts:

OCZ Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)
Timing: 5-5-5-15
Cas Latency: 5
Voltage: 2.1V
Cost: $269.99

OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)
Timing: 5-5-5-15
Cas Latency: 5
Cost: $249.99
Voltage: 2.3V

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Timing 4-4-3-5
Cas Latency 4
Voltage 2.0V - 2.1V
Cost: $174.99

Based upon raw specs (derived from New Egg, not manufactuers sites) the G. Skill seems to win hands down. CAS Latency is much lower as are the voltages. Cost is definatly a plus to. Is there any reason you guys know of that I should go with the OCz over the G.Skill? From my understanding G.Skills a pretty reputable brand.

Post by **dicecca112** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 9:22 am

This ram is MGH and is a steal at this price http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231065

I paid more for my team for 2x512mb

Edit wow that last one I think is a typo, got a link?

GSkill is the way to go, I don't think many OCZs memory use Micron D9xxx anymore

Post by **DMB2000uk** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 9:39 am

Hehe, though it might have you skippman when I read the topic title, hope I haven't confused you more about overclocking!

Dan

Skippman · Post by **Skippman** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 9:50 am

G.Skill I saw:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231114

Not at all Dan. I appreciated the infomation. It contradicted something someone in my office said to me but makes more sense than what he told me. I'd rather ask 500 questions and get the exact right parts to work in concert than post 500 complaints about some random stuff I bought not working together.

I respect your guys opinions, experiences, and information. If I didn't, I'd go somewhere else for it.

AntiV6 · Post by **AntiV6** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 11:48 am

I would go for some Buffalo Firestix.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 12:11 pm

Be carefull with G.Skill nowadays. they new batch of rams are not micron based, the're using Epilda IC's. Still good for 1GHz 4-4-4-* timings with 2.1v
But can't do 800MHz 3-3-3-* 1T and Trc at 7 (sweet spot)

Skippman · Post by **Skippman** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 12:42 pm

Well crap.

Ok, so DON'T get G.Skill? I mean how am I supposed to know, short of buying them, whether or not they're using the Micron modules? I can't exactly call New Egg and request a specific batch of RAM. Or send it back because it doesn't OC perfectly. <sigh>

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 1:53 pm

Skippman wrote:Well crap.

Ok, so DON'T get G.Skill? I mean how am I supposed to know, short of buying them, whether or not they're using the Micron modules? I can't exactly call New Egg and request a specific batch of RAM. Or send it back because it doesn't OC perfectly. <sigh>

Even if it's not micron based, it should still overclcok to 1GHz+ !

AntiV6 · Post by **AntiV6** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 1:58 pm

Skippman wrote:Well crap.

Ok, so DON'T get G.Skill? I mean how am I supposed to know, short of buying them, whether or not they're using the Micron modules? I can't exactly call New Egg and request a specific batch of RAM. Or send it back because it doesn't OC perfectly. <sigh>

Buffalo, Crucial, Mushkin use D9's. Just search around a little.

This article says that G.Skill switched and the rev101 chips have D9's.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... p?t=101762

Even if the IC is not a Micron chip, they can ussually hit 1+Ghz.

Skippman · Post by **Skippman** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 2:06 pm

So, the G.Skill RAM I listed above is good? I'm wanting to order my parts this weekend and want to make sure all my gear is solid before I order it and get disappointed all to hell and back.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 2:49 pm

Skippman wrote:So, the G.Skill RAM I listed above is good? I'm wanting to order my parts this weekend and want to make sure all my gear is solid before I order it and get disappointed all to hell and back.

What's your budget for RAM? I've only just bought my new DDR2 last week, so I've done some research. I need a price limit before I can suggest want to get.

Skippman · Post by **Skippman** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 4:59 pm

$250 is my maximum limit. I'm buying a board and proc at the same time so I'm trying to keep this as economical as I can.

AntiV6 · Post by **AntiV6** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 9:45 pm

Skippman wrote:$250 is my maximum limit. I'm buying a board and proc at the same time so I'm trying to keep this as economical as I can.

If $250 is your limit for just RAM, you can get some pretty sweet ram!

These would be my top three choices:

Crucial Ballistix PC2-8000: 189.99 after a Mail in reabte.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820146563

Corsair Dominator PC2-6400: $204.99 after a $40 mail in rebate.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820145168

OCZ Flex XLC PC2-6400: 209.99 after a Mail in rebate.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820227185

There are others, but these are all great modules, especially for over clocking.

If you were looking for a cheaper RAM, G.Skill or Buffalo would be good brands to check out.

brites · Post by **brites** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 3:28 am

I read this article... http://www.legionhardware.com/html/doc.php?id=630 ... and found out that...

It's is better to read it and cry for the > 250 $ wasted...

Skippman · Post by **Skippman** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 6:19 am

bitus,

Only one word comes to mind. No, make that two words.

WOW

and

THANKS

I got caught up in the CAS timing hype but that article, if accurace, would seem to show that the performance gains from using special low latency RAM are purely acedemic and not perceptable. I think rather than spending $250 on some high end OCz or Corsair RAM I'll just go with the G.Skill stuff Dice recommended. It's cost effective, will run at a 1:1 ratio with my desired OC speeds, and has good timings.

With the money I save I could eventually add a second set of RAM to my configuration bringing my rig up to 4 gig. In the games I play (Oblivion, STALKER, etc) having more RAM would probably be more benificial to having "faster" RAM.

Thoughts?

brites · Post by **brites** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 2:47 pm

Indeed... those games suck a lot of memory resources particulary in outdoor scenes.... so saving $$$ on a good GSkill may give room to by another set of RAM... but also don't forget that the Graphic's are also important in these games...

Skippman · Post by **Skippman** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 2:51 pm

Are you saying my dual X1900 Radeons arn't powerful enough? ;)

brites · Post by **brites** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 6:24 am

No... that's fine... dual X1900 isn't bad... better than mine anyway