High speed or tighter timings?

I ordered one set of each yesterday :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?ATT=20148069&CMP=AFC-SlickDeals&Item=N82E16820148069

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?ATT=20148070&CMP=AFC-SlickDeals&Item=N82E16820148070 (leds )

(they were both 75$ cheaper ; MIR is no longer available today... sry guys )

So hum... basicly I'm wondering, since there's no way my E6600 can catch up with those monsters, if I should use a divider and make that ram run as fast as it can or should I use that extra room to tighten timings?

Also, what is the highest vcore and load temperature (in celcius plz) I should tolerate for my final 24/7 overclock on my E6600?

you can run either ram flat out, because on C2D's, downward multipliers are unlocked.

so, lets say for example, that you run 400*9 on your e6600 to give you 3.6ghz. if you run your ram 1:1 with the fsb (ideal) it will also be running at 400mhz, or ddr2-800 speeds.

now, we both know that ram can go a lot higher than that. you could lower your multiplier to 8, and use 450*8=3600mhz. the ram will also be running at 450mhz, or ddr2-900 speeds.

lets say now that you want to get the absolute most from your ram. set the multi to 7, and run 515*7=3605mhz. now your ram will be running at 515mhz or ddr2-1030 speeds.

this is the method i would use to max out your ram. this way, your fsb is getting maxed out as well. also, say you stick with the 9 multi, running an upwards divider on the memory to make it run faster than the fsb can sometimes yield poor performance, or instability.

once you know generally what your ram will do at default timings (4-4-4-12 i think), then you can work on lowering the timings at known stable ram clocks.

*edit* sorry missed your last question..

i would say (IMO) that up to 65c under full load as read by TAT is acceptable. my cpu has chugged thru 18 hours of orthos even while i allowed temps to rise to 75c...it stayed rock solid. for long term use however, try to stick to 65c.

you can use 4:5 divider also and still use 8 or 9 multi

Im a very confused because my board uses a little different terminology.

my system is running at (9x378) = 3.4GHz

In my board you input the FSB as 4x378=1512MHz
and if I select RAM linked with 1:1 ratio then my RAM goes to 1512MHz. Although I havent been able to boot at this setting, I know it should show up theoretically in CPUZ as a RAM frequency of 756MHz with FSB/DRAM = 1. However this is definitely not stable and crashes even with looser timings and higher voltage (2.25V).

Can someone clear up my confusion? What speed should I put my RAM at so it is running 1:1?

EDIT: WOOT 2 stars

GTengineer said:

Im a very confused because my board uses a little different terminology.

my system is running at (9x378) = 3.4GHz

In my board you input the FSB as 4x378=1512MHz
and if I select RAM linked with 1:1 ratio then my RAM goes to 1512MHz. Although I havent been able to boot at this setting, I know it should show up theoretically in CPUZ as a RAM frequency of 756MHz with FSB/DRAM = 1. However this is definitely not stable and crashes even with looser timings and higher voltage (2.25V).

Can someone clear up my confusion? What speed should I put my RAM at so it is running 1:1?

EDIT: WOOT 2 stars

Click to expand...

it seems that setting the ram 1:1 on your board results in it trying to set your ram to ddr2-1512 (756mhz), is this correct?

so, right now, it is setting 1:1 with respect to -> 4*378= ddr2-1512 (the 'quad pumped' speed of the fsb, not the true fsb)?

if so, it would make sense to me that if you ram the fsb twice as fast as the ram, it would line up to what "1:1" means on most ppl boards. so that would be a 2:1 ratio in your bios.

(keep in mind, i have never seen the bios you are talking about, pure speculation based off of your brief discription)

hbb, I think you are right but that would mean my BIOS software is crap then which honestly would not surprise me.

If I set it linked 1:1 it shows at the bottom:
Actual DDR Memory: 1512MHz

Therefore for 1:1, I would need to put it unlinked at 756MHz correct? which would be below my DDR2-800 spec? Is it counter productive to have the RAM running faster than FSB since I can run it up to DDR2-900?

GTengineer said:

hbb, I think you are right but that would mean my BIOS software is crap then which honestly would not surprise me.

If I set it linked 1:1 it shows at the bottom:
Actual DDR Memory: 1512MHz

Therefore for 1:1, I would need to put it unlinked at 756MHz correct? which would be below my DDR2-800 spec? Is it counter productive to have the RAM running faster than FSB since I can run it up to DDR2-900?

Click to expand...

i'm sure your bios isn't crap, its just that nvidia bios' are always a little, different we'll say.

it may say "Actual DDR Memory: 1512mhz", but it is most likely wrong. ddr2-1000 actually runs at 500mhz, ddr2-800 actually runs at 400mhz. if what the bios is saying is true, then it is trying to run the ram at ddr2-1024 speeds, and i doubt that a lot of people get confused with this, and misnaming things in the bios doesn't help. my asus mobo says the same thing btw (it says ddr2-1000 is at 1000mhz)

by the way they have it labeled, i would say yes, unlinked at 756mhz would give you an actual ram speed of 378mhz, or ddr2-756. or you could run linked, but with the fsb/ram ratio at 2:1 instead of 1:1.

thanks, there is actually no 2:1 ratio. I have the RAM at 950 now which is 4:5