O/C and Ram Speed for P4 2.8C...

let me first say this place has a plethora of info!! excellent site

newbie o/c and newbie p4

just bought this board from newegg and have a question about ram:

in the bios there are only 3 options for memory speed ddr266,333 & 400. there is also another option that lets you up the fsb of the chip only. now i have done this with my pc2100 ram just to see if it works. i tried running the 2.8 @ 2.9 and it worked perfectly even with pc2100 ram and the ram still showed up @ 133 with cpu-z. my question is do i need to just get pc3200 since it seems like the ram is locked at one of the 3 options? i am hoping to go atleast 3.0 with this chip after it is stable and gets "broken in"

thanks for the info

Well you will need new ram,but what speed is up to you. I wouldnt bother buying ram under ddr400(AKA pc3200),how far do you think you are going to overclock your 2.8c too??

whops well i see you want to overclock to 3.0,most likely will end up being 3.2 at some point in time,id look for some pc3500,maybe these,depends what is your price limit????
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-895&depa=0

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-963&depa=0

i wasn't going to go below pc3200, but in the bios i can only select 266,333 or 400 for memory speed. i was wondering if anything faster would be useful or just a waste.

i am hoping to go 3.0GHz, but am not sure what temp to keep the chip under so it is stable.

it is currently running prime 95 @ 2.8 and is 56C under full load. i am utilizing the stock hsf.

anybody else want to comment about this? please...

400 = 1:1 ratio of your fsb
333 = 5:4 ratio "
266 = 3:2 ratio "

Its the same as my Asus board.
Your ram will go as fast as your procesor board speed.

all depends on ur budget and how far you want to go...PC3500 will more than get you there (3.0)...if you don't want a serious o/c then stick with PC3200 or 3500 with the tightest timings you can find, if you wanna go all out, get at least PC3700, better yet PC4000+, a bit looser and more extreme, also, keep an eye on those temps if you o/c, they seem a bit high, not dangerous, just high, i run 26C at idle

turns out my board will go upto 230 so i will probably go with some pc4000. i figure i can get 1GB for ~$300. i am also going to look in to one of the nice copper heatsinks with a big fan.

just out of curiosity, what kind of performance should i see by going to pc3200/4000 from the pc2100 i currently have, even at stock non o/c speeds?

Don't forget that some dimms are more overclockable than others. For example a Winbond BH-5 based PC3200 (Kingston HyperX KHX3200 or Corsair XMS3200LL version 1.1 for example) will run at higher speeds with tighter timings than a Winbond CH-5 based PC3200 (KHX3200A or XMS3200LL version 1.2). So it's your choice. Personally, I would go with a PC3500 with BH-5 chips. This way you can run as PC3200 with the tightest timings possible (2-2-2-5) and also have the opportunity to overclock much higher than PC3500, while still retaining tight timings. A PC3700 or above will probably have 4-4-8 timings which are the worst possible. Also these new dimms don't let you run at a lower MHz with tighter timings, so you'll never be able to run them at 400DDR with 2-2-5 timings or even close. The PC3500 with BH-5 lets you enjoy both worlds - high speed and tighter timings, and gives you flexibility which you just can't have with the new fast clocking dimms.

how do i know what chips are going to be on the dimms since i will be ordering from newegg? is it posted?

bob4432 said:

how do i know what chips are going to be on the dimms since i will be ordering from newegg? is it posted?

Click to expand...

For PC3200 it's easy. If it's 2-2-2 than it's BH-5, if it's 2-3-2 so it's most likely CH-5. With PC3500 it's harder to say; you just have to clear it up with the seller. It's pretty hard to get hold of BH-5s because they've been out of production for some time now :-( I think some other posts list places where you can find BH-5s.

what benefits do i get going with tighter timings? in a nutshell...

I might not be the most experienced person around here to ask, but I'll try to answer. From my past month experiments, it seems that tighter timings give a high boost in gaming environments. Using the 3DMark benchmarks a substantial improvement in the overall score is visible when using tighter timings. The "timings" are latencies, a period of time before the memory at a certain address can actually be read. If the memory is read in a linear way, meaning one address after the other, then the latencies play a less significant role. However, in games the memory is usually not read consecutively; the data is read from different parts of the memory and not in a linear way, so latencies take a very siginificant role, as memory banks and rows frequently change.

Sometimes working at a lower MHz but with higher timings is preferable. It's always a matter of choice. If you want higher speeds you have to sacrifice your timings. It all depend on the kind of applications you're going to run. If you are going to have a gaming rig, then I suggest going with tighter timings over higher speed. Benchmarking with your current system can also help you decide what is the best for you.

Check out Drisler's excellent Memory Basics article at http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=257741

Hope this helped a bit!

Oren

thanks for the info. i built the machine because of video editing / rendering was taking too long on my xp 2000. i game but occasionally and old machine was actually ok at that so i am sure this one will kick @$$. thanks again for your time.

if you can find a place that sells the the OCZ pc3500 platinum limited edition then go for em

what about the bh-6 chips, like the ones on mushkin's 222 ram? any good?

Running Promo 222 at 236@2,2,2,6 3.2v AI7. Can do 250@2,3,3,7. I have 1 gig ( 2 x 512) so maybe the 256meg sticks will give a little increase.

Be advised these sticks do not get going until they get a FULL 3volts to them and really get going at 3.3v. I need a volt mod

Go here if you have no heatspreaders. This will tell you what chips are on your sticks. for the most part.\



http://www.biwa.ne.jp/~yok/TENJIKAN-DDR.htm