4Gb on P5WD2 - mild overclocking, best performance sticks?

I'm putting together a new system that will be used for Adobe Photoshop CS2, some Premiere Pro work, RAW image processing etc - no gaming. I plan to put together an Asus P5WD2 Premium with a Pentium D 840, and want 4Gb of RAM. System stability and relatively low noise are important, so I don't plan on doing any "serious" overclocking. I'll probably use a Thermalright XP-90, and a Coolermaster Stacker RC-810 case, along with an OCZ ModStream 520W PSU. The RC-810 has one 120mm fan intake (I'll likely add another one, using their 4x3.5 drive cage), two 120mm exhausts in the rear and one 80mm exhaust at the top.

Given all this, I expect to be able to tweak the FSB to around 220MHz - 235MHz without requiring lots of cooling. Now, what memory would provide the best results given the intended use of my system? I'm wondering what the trade-off is of running low timings (2-2-3-x say) at lower FSB versus 4-4-x-x at higher FSB?

While I want to get the best memory I can, I don't want to overspend for serious overclocking ability that I don't plan to do. For instance, there's really good OCZ PC2-5400 Platinum Enhanced Bandwidth sticks that cost $542 for 2Gb. I'll spend $1100 for 4Gb if I have to and there will be a noticeable performance gain (real-world applications, not just synthetic benchmarks) - but I have a feeling this is overkill for my needs?

The options I'm considering are Crucial Ballistix, Corsair XMS2 or OCZ Platinum (probably in that order even) - all DDR2 667MHz at the very least, maybe even DDR2 800MHz.

Can I achieve tight timings (2-2-x-x) with any of these at say 235MHz FSB? Do I want to do that, even?

As you might have realized, I'm a bit unsure of exactly what I should be striving for, and how much "memory ability" I need to spend for. I'd really appreciate any pointers, comments and suggestions!!

Thanks very much

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820141211
'nuff said

i've never seen cas2 ddr2 ram, and cas3 isn't an option with this motherboard (i've been repeately told this although never have tested it.) there's no middle ground that i've seen between the fantastic sticks with micron fatbody d9 and these pqi sticks. keep in mind rated speed is 333mhz 4-4-4-12 so you have some headroom.

Great ram, i got myself the same stuff. and for 2 gb you cant beat that price!

no one needs 4GB for photo editing... i do full blown video editing pal to ntsc and all the works...I have 2GB 2x1gb dual channel..runs perfect... i would go with 2 of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146562

Thanks for the PQI RAM recommendation, the price is certainly right for those DDR2 667MHz sticks. What kind of overclocking are you guys able to do with these - timings/FSB? The Timings for these are rated at 4-4-4-12, same as the Crucial Ballistix that are twice the price, so what's the situation?

How about when comparing these sticks with these Ballistix? Both at the same speed (DDR2-667), the former has a CL=5, latter CL=4 ($100 more). Will I see better performance with the latter, whether at stock speeds or overclocked a little?

I'm trying to understand what makes some sticks better/cost more - overclockability, stability at higher speeds and/or better timings at those higher speeds?

I want to make sure I spend the money to get the best RAM for my intended applications, and at this point I think I'm partial to Crucial stuff.

dpgthing said:

no one needs 4GB for photo editing... i do full blown video editing pal to ntsc and all the works...I have 2GB 2x1gb dual channel..runs perfect... i would go with 2 of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146562

Click to expand...

BIG difference between photo editing and video editing (Photoshop CS2 vs. Premiere Pro say) - PS CS2 WILL use 2Gb RAM all for itself, and when editing large files this makes a big difference! The remaining 2Gb (or even 1 - 1.5Gb) will be used by WinXP 32-bit for other applications. So 4Gb is pretty important to me.

I have the 533MHz version of the PQi, and I love it. You CAN use CAS 3 on the P5WD2. With the 533 speed, you can have a 1066MHz FSB. I don't even run my fsb that high, but I dunno what you define as mild.

id go wit the 4gb of pqi

or

these

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145590

Vaio said:

I have the 533MHz version of the PQi, and I love it. You CAN use CAS 3 on the P5WD2. With the 533 speed, you can have a 1066MHz FSB. I don't even run my fsb that high, but I dunno what you define as mild.

Click to expand...

That's very helpful, thanks! Good to know I can use CAS 3 on the P5WD2 (with these PQI sticks, right?). I don't think I'll run my FSB much more than 225Mhz-230MHz (for heat/noise issues), so that's effectively an FSB under 1000MHz - the 667MHz PQI recommended above should work really well then given your experience with the 533MHz sticks.

How high are you running your FSB, at what timings, and what voltage?

Thanks again...

Calcal, those Corsair XMS2 sticks were also near the top of my list - a decent price for DDR2-800 sticks! They show a CAS of 5, though, can these run at any tighter timings at an FSB of around 235MHz say?

Catul said:

How high are you running your FSB, at what timings, and what voltage?

Thanks again...

Click to expand...

I'm running them at about 245MHz at the rated timing. I could probably tighten it up, but I don't feel like messing with it. Also, I just have the voltage set to auto, andit works fine.