will this memory be OK?

[sofarfrome]

OCZ EB DDR PC-4000 (500MHZ) (2x1024) Platinum

Will this be OK for a system with P4P800SE and a 2.4C Northwood OC'd to 3.2 GHz or is it overkill?

Antec 2.0 True Power 550W
ATI 9800Pro

[sofarfrome]

I can buy this too...woould this memory also (or not) be overkill?


Corsair XMS TwinX PC4400

[avalanche83]

What clocks are you going for and what FSB will you be running at? I would get some OCZ Plat. Rev. 2 or Ballistix if you want around 300MHz.

[raven]

If you want to run at 1:1 (FSB:Memory) then DDR500 Memory would be too slow as it will only run at 500 / 2(double data rate; DDR) = 250MHz. A 2.4C has a 12x multiplier, and since it has a quad pumped FSB, its original FSB = 800 / 4 = 200MHz. By doing some simple math, you would be able to find that to run your 2.4C (or 200MHz * 12 = 2.4GHz) at 3.2GHz having a 1:1 ratio, then you would need a FSB of 267MHz (267MHz * 12 = 3.204GHz). On the other hand, the DDR 4400 that you are looking at would definitely be able to run it at 3.2GHz as PC4400 = DDR550 = a speed of 275MHz. You could possibly overclock those sticks of PC4000 to 267MHz, but you might need to raise your RAM voltage and/or loosen your memory timings (all done in the BIOS).

Your other options here would be to buy slower ram and either attempt to overclock to 275MHz, or run slower ram at a lower ratio (ie 5:4) For instance, if you were to purchase DDR400 (200MHz, PC3200) RAM and run at a 5:4 ratio, then you would be able set your FSB to (200MHz / 4) * 5 = 250MHz FSB. In this case, to run at 3.2GHz, you would only have to overclock your RAM to 213.6MHz which is more likely to happen than overclocking DDR400 to 267MHz. Unfortunately there is infact a downside to this. By using a 5:4 ratio and achieving a higher overclock, your memory bandwidth would suffer (as 213MHz is much less than 267MHz). Therefore, you must make a choice of which you could live with more, slower CPU speed, or less Memory Bandwidth.

In almost everything in the world, there are exceptions to the rule and you could go out a buy well known BH-5, TCCD, or TCC5 RAM modules which would allow you to overclock to your desired speeds, but that would cost you quite a bit. I myself have a 2.4C overclocked to 3.3 GHz using BH-6 PC3200 sticks of RAM. This allows me to use a memory frequency of 220MHz and it allows me to attain a FSB of 275MHz. I must say that I am very happy with this as I haven't had any complaints.

Also, yes another thing that you would have to take a look at is memory timings. the lower the numbers, the better the timings would be. 2-2-2-5 timings are the tightest that you can get, so do your best to buy something that is close to that. My BH-6 run at 2-2-2-5 at 220MHz, but I am also running 3.0V through them to keep my Overclock stable.

Anyways, I am sure that you would like to read more about this stuff. In that case, you can visit the links below for some more useful information.

OC 2.4c (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=440561&highlight=FSB+Memory+RAM+ratio)
Dividers and Performance (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=439532&highlight=FSB+Memory+RAM+ratio)
Tweaking your RAM (http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/fma/P4tweakRAM3.htm)


You can also search these forums as there have been many questions having to do with this.

In the end, I would just like to say that you will most likely be able to reach 267MHz with both of those sticks (with some tweaking of some BIOS settings for the OCZ), but if you would like to save some money, I would advise you to do some research on which type of memory sticks are rated at lower speeds but could possibly achieve what you are looking for.


Raven

[t1mex]

This ram may also be a viable option:
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=450191
As you can see from the later posts, it supposedly has UCCC chips, and will clock in excess of 250Mhz, and its barely over $150. Would probably save you some money, but I don't know what kind of price you are looking at paying for the 2 you listed. (However, if you want the "bling factor," go for the TwinX since it has the activity LEDs. Realize you are paying lots of money for that though :cool: )