The best DDR

[Bender]

I just ordered a 256 stick of Mushkin pc2400 cas 2 ddr along with my Epox 8K7A. I was just wondering how good this stuff actually is. Does anyone have experience with any Mushkin ddr. I would love to get up to a 200 fsb; how likely is this? Please give me any info you have on this ram or the motherboard. I'm a newbie when it comes to ddr.

Here is the Mushkin (http://www.mushkin.com/cgi-bin/Mushkin.filereader?3b81cd3816103b6e273fc0a80102064 a+EN/products/990796) ram

[Placid]

There is no 1/5 pci divider with the 8k7a bios so you will be running your pci bus at 50mhz @200fsb its not impossible but
not likley.

I am not posting this to rain on your parade or anything I just dont want you to think you will be "safe" overclocking that high of a fsb.

Goodluck with your overclocking.

http://www.amdmb.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=52126

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?start=21&catid=27&threadid=500313

[Bender]

From what I have heard here and from what I gather at Amdmb there is a 1/5 and 1/6 divisor. Epox doesn't seem to admit to a 1/5 or 1/6 but why are so many people running 170+ FSB. Isnt this the board Wild_Andy_c used to get about 200 FSB?

[Placid]

You can run 170+ but there is no 1/5 divider.
People run 170+ on intel boards as well.
I have also read about people who have pci parts break running at 170 with this board.
As for Wild Andy you would have to ask him.
He aslo runs the hk7a at 200mhz.
Belive what you want, I belive epox and a engineer with a o-scope over amdmb.com.

[Bender]

I don't know what to believe but I do believe Wild_Andy_C got a 200 fsb. I guess its just a good board for high FSB speeds. Does the chipset itself support a 1/5 or 1/6?

[Placid]

From the AMD 761 datasheet , AMD 761 only support 1/3 and 1/4 PCI divider .
The clock generator of 8K7A is ICS 94225 , and this clock gen only supports 1/3 and 1/4 PCI divider from the datasheet .

[Bender]

Well I guess you just answered my question. Unless there are undocumented settings there probably is no 1/5 or 1/6. I don't think this really matters since I will just lower my ram latencies and get the same effect.

[proze]

i would really love to konw why the via and amd engineers don't just out a bl00dy 1/5 divider in?!! would it really be that hard?!

[joshiieeii]

Well like Placid said when you get your FSB up that high, the PCI slots tend to start frying things. So you have to ask yourself is it really worth it to get 200 FSB if you can't have anything plugged into the PCI slots *shrugs*, I don't think it is, but that is just my 2c.

[Len]

This is interesting. A few weeks ago I began to wonder if the 1/5 divisor really existed at all. Higher FSB speeds did seem possible but I wasn't seeing noticable differences in PCI device performance going from the low 160's with PCI bus in low 40's compared to the upper 160's with PCI bus speeds dropping to near 33.3 *IF* the 1/5 divisor really existed. I ran at 167 FSB for a while but had some problems with my CDRW. No problems at 148 FSB.

Here is my earlier thread on the topic:
http://forums.overclockers.ws/vb/showthread.php?threadid=28491&referrerid=3978

[Len]

| Removed duplicate post

[TRANCER24]

Just curious about all this on the Epox 8K7A with the newest bios flash why would it change the FSB from 166 to 250?? If 200 FSB is dangerous why did Epox allow this or do they really have a 1/5 pci div?

[Placid]

So other boards like abit kg7 that go to 200fsb would not look better.
Adjusting the vcore to +.4v is not also dangerous?
Another thing is the jumper on page 3-8 JCLK1 is clearly a 1/3 and 1/4 pci divider. If the board is so sophisticated that it can change to 1/5 and 1/6 pci automatically in the bios why would they put a jumper for the 1/3-1/4?

[Bender]

Placid the only reason I can see for putting a jumper 1/3 to 1/4 is for ease of setup for system builders and Oem integrators. If you have a big factory pumping out computers its much easier "supposedly" to set a jumper than to setup the computer just to change the fsb. I'm thinking the 8k7a really has a 1/5 and 1/5 divisor. According to Wild_Andy_c it does have the 1/5 and 1/6 with the new bios so I'm inclined to believe it does.

[Placid]

Wild andy is a engineer according to his profile yet will not give any proof that there is other than saying yes there is.
Another engineer in taiwan who tested the board with the 7-11 bios found there was no 1/5 divider and gave screenshots of his findings using a o-scope on the board.

Why does epox say no when asked if there is a 1/5 divider?

Would epox not be bragging that that the 8k7a is the only board to support a 1/5 divider?

I wish there were but until someone can give any solid evidence that there is a 1/5 divider other than saying yes there is or this site says there is unless its epox or I can overclock to 200 because people have gotten to 200 with a 1/4 pci as 50mhz pci is not impossible just very stressfull I will continue to belive there is not.

I would like wild andy to do some tests with an o-scope and see if he can get a different result other than what the other engineer did that would be some proof.