Question on Buying Ram

[ssoutrs]

Hey, I am looking to buy some new ram for basically a new pc I have just built.

I just bought:

AMD Athlon X2 4800
Asus A8N SLI Deluxe Mobo (holding out on the A8N32 until a later revision)
eVGA e-Geforce 7800 GTX (256).

I have a couple questions on buying ram, however.

1. If I buy pc4000 ram the ram would be running in asynchronous operation, right? Will the lack of performance resulting from asynchronous operation more than offset the higher frequency of pc4000 ram as opposed to pc3200 ram?

a. would it be worth it to lower the frequency on a pc4000 chip to run in synchronous mode so I can tighten the timings? I want this system to be a gaming system so am shooting for overclockability and tight timings.

2. If I go with pc3200 ram and I choose to overclock my system (I have not yet overclocked before but I plan to on this system) will my overclocked system offset the trade off in cas latency. In other words will I see my performance suffer in memory intensive games if I choose to overclock since I hear CL is more important for games than memory frequency.

Finally, anyone able to proffer up good overclockable memory that can maintain tight timings at high frequencies?

Thanks for any help!

[cx323]

Hey, I am looking to buy some new ram for basically a new pc I have just built.

I just bought:

AMD Athlon X2 4800
Asus A8N SLI Deluxe Mobo (holding out on the A8N32 until a later revision)
eVGA e-Geforce 7800 GTX (256).

I have a couple questions on buying ram, however.

1. If I buy pc4000 ram the ram would be running in asynchronous operation, right? Will the lack of performance resulting from asynchronous operation more than offset the higher frequency of pc4000 ram as opposed to pc3200 ram?

a. would it be worth it to lower the frequency on a pc4000 chip to run in synchronous mode so I can tighten the timings? I want this system to be a gaming system so am shooting for overclockability and tight timings.

2. If I go with pc3200 ram and I choose to overclock my system (I have not yet overclocked before but I plan to on this system) will my overclocked system offset the trade off in cas latency. In other words will I see my performance suffer in memory intensive games if I choose to overclock since I hear CL is more important for games than memory frequency.

Finally, anyone able to proffer up good overclockable memory that can maintain tight timings at high frequencies?

Thanks for any help!


1. You can run memory synchronously with an a64. The pc4000 would allow you mroe head room to run 1:1 since you have a 4800+.

If you have a lot of money to blow, which it looks like you do i would get the ballistix. They run 3-3-3 at 280+http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146578

Otherwise these gskills are good. they do >275 @ 3-4-4
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231021

[party animal]

The Ballistix are good, but lots of people have been complaining about their sticks dying one them. The G.Skills use UCCC so they should oc pretty nicely.

[cx323]

The Ballistix are good, but lots of people have been complaining about their sticks dying one them. The G.Skills use UCCC so they should oc pretty nicely.

the current sets don't seem to be dying, the one in the month or so before now seem to be having problems

[Otter]

1) There is absolutely no penalty for running the memory and CPU asynchronously on an A64. In fact, even at "1:1", that's what you're doing. The memory controller and RAM have their own bus and do not use the FSB. (An A64 doesn't even have a front side bus.) Hence, there is no added latency for mismatched frequencies.

2) Yes, but you don't have to OC the RAM to OC the CPU.

If you do OC the RAM, you'll need a good boost in frequency to offset the performance hit for higher latencies. However, the A64's onboard memory controller works so well that memory is seldom a bottleneck. As a result, neither the speed nor timings matter all that much to real world performance. With heavy multitasking on a dual-core CPU, you might see a little more benefit from fast, low-latency RAM, but it's still not going to make that much difference.