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Highest voltage on DDR2? Who is crazy out there?

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NinjaZX6R

RAM Junkie
Joined
Nov 19, 2002
Location
In slots 2 & 4!
Hey guys,

I am in the process of choosing between two boards. One is the gigabyte ga-8n-sli and one is the asus p5nd2-sli. The asus stops at 2.3v on the ram, the gigabyte does 2.5v. I have never gone above 2.0v, as I don't know what is safe. I think the asus is a superior board, but I am not sure if I should get the gigabyte for its extra .2v. You guys probably know that I am usually more interested in ram overclocking than cpu :)

So, has anyone ever used more than 2.3v? Would it be worth my while to get this board just because of its ram voltage? I have Patriot XBL PC5600 if it matters. Thanks!

-Collin-
 
Get the Asus, it'll overclock better. I've never used more than 2.2v on any of my DDR2 RAM. I've gotten my Kingston HyperX up to DDR2-800 with 2.0v and my OCZ EB rev 2 PC2-4200 up to DDR2-700 with 3-2-2-8 timings using 2.2v.
 
IMO - if I preferred the Asus, I'd go with it, because I seriously doubt I'd ever want to go higher than 2.3 on that ram. In fact, I probably wouldn't go higher than 2.2 - which is 10 percent over spec for that ram. I also agree with Batboy - Asus mobos generally overclock much better than gigabyte. At least, that's been my own personal experience.
 
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I run 1.9V on my Corsair XMS2 PC2-5400 (2x512MB) at 4-4-4-12... at 800mhz. :D

I only bumped it to 1.9V with a few other voltages to get rid of a Prime95 error. No error now, so I'm not sure if it was vcore, nb, or what voltage effected it. I'd assume it would run at 1.8V.

I have a pair of Mushkin XP-6400 2x1GB sticks on backorder (I'm 2nd in the stack, waiting!). They are 5-3-3-8 sticks. :D


The point I was trying to make is I don't have to push the Corsair's hard to get the 800mhz clock on the memory. And the Mushkin XP-6400s are rated from 1.8V to 2.2V! In other words, they say 2.2V won't hurt anything.


A side note: From measuring my vcore and memory chips on the mobo (and find any thread here about volt mods to the P5AD2 or P5DW2) you don't get that much voltage on the memory anyhow. With a setting of 1.8V, I measure 1.73V at my memory. When set to 2.1V, the DVM says only 1.93V is at the memory. In other words, setting to 2.4V might yeild about 2.1V.
 
Also, these are the same chips in DDR1 memory modules (from what I got out of talking with Mushkin about being back ordered). DDR1 runs upwards of 2.6V and much higher while DDR2 specs are much lower (1.8V-2.1V). Mushkin even has DDR1 sticks that go to 3.4V!

So I'd see no problem running 2.4 to 2.6V if you think you need it. I can't see why though.
 
I think this is really going to come down to a question to quality of the memory. I probably wouldn't try on generic what I would on Corsair (or on Corsair VS what I would on XMS2 for that matter). I know someone on XS that has run like 2.9V through his v1.1 XMS2 Corsair 5400ULs without blowing them up :eek: Of course, that's probably not daily :D

I pushed my Mushkins up to a real (measured) 2.30V for benches/stability (which would probably be about 2.40V BIOS setting if it was available), but run 2.00V to them for daily use/OC. It really depends what you want to do with the sticks. Unless you want to really OC them or tighten up the latencies, there's no real reason to run sick voltage to them anyway. Raising the voltage may or may not have much impact on the extra you would get out of them anyway depending on the sticks.

As eduncan said, Vddr setting in BIOS is VERY likely going to be lower than Vddr actual to the sticks no matter what board you get and it definitely will be lower on the P5WD2.

eduncan-- if you're tired of waiting for the Mushkins, PM me...I *might* be looking to get Corsair 8000ULs now that I am on phase ;) BTW, the Mushkins reached DDR1060 5-3-3-8 @ 2.3V. I am actually going to see what they do at BIOS-capable voltage (2.2V actual) since they got up to 1017 there easily, but my proc was holding me up from trying any further. I've tried as high as DDR900 with 4-2-3-4...still looking to top out the speed with the tighter timings, but I don't think anything on these sticks at tighter timings/lower speeds is going to beat the 1060/default latencies...it's sick (8000 Sandra/9000 Everest)!
 
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