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Big PC Upgrade, Have a few memory questions

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Wiz4rd

Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2003
I'm upgrading to the 2100+ cpu and 8RDA Epox mobo, The cpu stepping I think is AUHIB, anyways now I need to ram shop, I will NOT be water cooling, I need 512Mb of ram for this beast. I currently have 2 sticks of PC2100 256MB DDR crucial ram, I've been told to upgrade.

Many people tell me Corsair XMS PC3200 is the way to go, but there are quite a few different chips/revisions out there. Can someone reccomend which chip to buy? And should I go with 2x256 or 1x512?

Also as this will be air cooled, I have a pretty ventalated case, I need a good heatsink and fan so some reccomendations there would be great. I want to push this box to its max and then back it off a bit and run it 24/7 mostly for gaming and normal desktop activities.

Thanks guys, I love this forum !
 
For the memory the new Corsair Twinx512-3200LL will work great and is tested for use on the A7N8X.
For a Heatsink my personal favorite is the SLK800. Fan choice depends on how much noise you can live with. The Vantec Tornado moves a large amount of air but is VERY LOUD. A mid cfm fan will give you good performance with a moderate noise level.
 
I have the XMS PC3200C2 and it is great ram. Running at 191 with no voltage increase at all. As for the heatsink I like the SK7. It is $10 cheaper than the SLK-800 but cools within 1~2C. As for a fan I like the YS Tech adjustable ones.
 
Not to overclock this hummer

Ok I admit I'm a noob at overclocking oh well everyone starts somewhere. Now keep in mind I'm currently running 512MB crucial DDR PC2100 RAM. I managed to bimp the multiplier up to 14 which gave me like 1870 mhz out of my 2100+ AUHIB

When i try going to 15 which would give me 2000 mhz the PC posts and bios starts but when it goes to boot windows it does.

This board "8RDA" has a ton of settings, can someone give me an idea what to fool with to get the most out of the ram I have now, gonna get a stick of xms 3200 corsair soon, so some ideas would be great between now and then.

Part of me thinks I need to up the cpu voltage because i'm overclocking, I just dont really know, im a total noob thanks for all your help.
 
I would consider if you are to run it with only 512mb and it is a NF2 board get two sticks of 256and run them in DC as boards allows you to. You will get better benches that way as the mem is utilised better.
 
Get the twin pack thing of LL sticks from corsair, they just rock beyond all other RAM chips, i have a Nforce board, only one stick of ram but still its still good, get 2x256 so you can take advantage of the dual channel, it should have little or no effect on how high you can overclock your ram, thats a problem with stupid VIA, not nForce. Umm lets see do i have any other advise...

I am also relivily new to OCing but i know a little ;) so about your questions

about your question about upping to vcore voltage (cpu voltage) you dont need to unless...go download a thing called Prime95 if you havnt already, its a great tool for testing stability of your overclock, for ram and cpu, so if you can run the torcher test on that for 24-48 hours you can consider yourself pretty dang stable, now if any of that reports erros up your voltage, untill your not comfortable with your temps anymore, then maybe try decresing your overclock, somtimes a few Mhz is all it takes.

RAM, go corsair, crucial is great stuff, but not for overclocking, i have had both now so i know ;) the 3200 sticks are great, and to anwser your version question buy the sticks from newegg, for two reasons 1. newegg rocks, 2. they sell the 3200 version 1.1 chips, they are what is working with the nforce boards better than the 1.0 chips so buy from them, or i guess googlegear sells 1.1 too if you want to go that way.

ALL THOSE SETTINGS IN YOUR BIOS...

its great isnt it, i got my asus and loved all the new setting sin there, but even it could still use more, the ones you want to pay attention to are the

FSB, Mulitpier, FSB/RAM ratio (its in percents on my board, i dont know about yours) but its what tells how fast the ram should go compared to the FSB, choose either sync or 100% this will run your ram the same speed as everything else (but it will be double (DDR)), All your voltages.

first unlock your chip, or maybe it will unlock itself since its a t-bred-b so once thats done lower your multiplier and relax your memory timings either choose optimal or make the numbers HIGHER. Raise all your voltages to the highest point you feel comfortable with, Then crank up the FSB to 166, then 180, then 190, 200, etc, find where it wont boot anymore, reset your bios (that jumper thing) and find the number inbetween that your ocmputer will boot on, then redice that a little, just to make sure theres no problems later.

Crank up your multiplyer, until it doenst boot, turn it back to the one it booted on and reset the FSB, now tighten (lower) your timings to as low as they will go, different systems react differently to different timings so you will have to experiment, like mine will actually for some reason get better numbers at 2-2-2-6 than 2-2-2-5, i dont know so yeah. If your air cooling, try to keep the voltages within reason, dont go more than 1.85 on your CPU (if you have good air colling) and dont go more than 2.8 on your memory unless you want to void corsairs warrenty.

You can see what i run for air cooling below, and i have 1.8 on my cpu and 1.6 on my memory, but thats becasue i dont have a tbred, you lucky!! and my FSB wont go any higher so theres not much point in raising anything anymore till i can fiz that.


But thats about all i can think of, i hope i helped a little, happy OCing!!

Matt
 
Thanks for the reply matt you ROCK !

Still a little confused on what 2-2-2-6 means but the rest of it I understood fine, thanks dude.
 
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