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4 vs 2 RIMM o/c

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RedSkull

Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2002
Location
neither here nor there
Has anyone found any advantage to using
4 vs 2 RIMM, I know I have read that 128 works better, but I am set on 1 gig of RAM and that ecomes impossible with 128..

therefore I am stuck between 4 256 or 2 512...
any ideas which would perform better is either?
 
Theoretically, if you have two ram sticks instead of four, it decreases the amount of load on the RAM controller. Sometimes too much load on that can limit an overclock, but it's a rare occurence. I don't think it would make much of a difference, but if you have the cash I'd stick to the 2 512 sticks.
 
jazztrumpet216 said:
Theoretically, if you have two ram sticks instead of four, it decreases the amount of load on the RAM controller. Sometimes too much load on that can limit an overclock, but it's a rare occurence. I don't think it would make much of a difference, but if you have the cash I'd stick to the 2 512 sticks.

jazztrumpet216 is right, it has been shown that the fewer sticks of ram you have the better chance of a good overclock you have. It has shown true in my own personal exsperience.
 
Well, I think there is the possibility that you might have a slightly better chance at getting a higher clock speed with only 2 Rimms as opposed to 4. However, I think the reason would simply be that with 4 Rimms there's more of a chance that one or more of your Rimms might not take the higher clock speed. As for the comment about the "load on the memory controller" keep in mind that in most Rambus boards you must use terminater (or dummy) Rimms in the unused Rimm sockets. So, actually the memory controller needs to see a load in all the Rimm sokets.
 
SP said:
Well, I think there is the possibility that you might have a slightly better chance at getting a higher clock speed with only 2 Rimms as opposed to 4. However, I think the reason would simply be that with 4 Rimms there's more of a chance that one or more of your Rimms might not take the higher clock speed. As for the comment about the "load on the memory controller" keep in mind that in most Rambus boards you must use terminater (or dummy) Rimms in the unused Rimm sockets. So, actually the memory controller needs to see a load in all the Rimm sokets.

Yes, you're right, but the controller must see the load, not control it in any way, because there's nothing there to control, besides a few PCBs. But the chance of one of the RIMMs not taking the higher FSB is probably a greater danger, IMO... and I'd go with the two anyway.
 
Another thing that should be kept in mind while trying to use a large quantity of memory sticks is the capacitance that is added to the board. Since there are physically more memory chips installed in the motherboard, it can become a problem for some motherboards to get power to them, thus causing more voltage fluctuations and, in many cases, instability at a lower speed than would otherwise be noticed.
 
RedSkull said:
Has anyone found any advantage to using
4 vs 2 RIMM, I know I have read that 128 works better, but I am set on 1 gig of RAM and that ecomes impossible with 128..

therefore I am stuck between 4 256 or 2 512...
any ideas which would perform better is either?


Right now I have 4 256 meg sticks running at 150mhz in my vp6. they will do 155 fine too. of course i bought all 4 sticks at the same time from crucial so there should be less fluctuation in quality between sticks of ram.

no one really needs a gig of ram unless your going to make a ram drive. then two gigs would be better. i can run about 20+ apps with 60% of my memory free.

what you should think about doing is buying two 256 sticks and upgrading to four later if you find it insufficiant ...which you wont.

as for quality i'd say 256 sticks are probably much more oc friendly since most people who buy 512+ sticks are running at default speeds on server boards.

also with large memory arrays (1 gig+) registered (ie expensive memory) and probably ecc is usually used.
 
My favorite memory vendor always recommends 256 meg sticks over 512s for overclocking.
 
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