Memory???

Ok...lemme see if I can spit this out right. I am about to build a 1.3 Athlon on a KT7A-Raid and I am in the process of shopping for memory. I talked to a friend and he said you get what you pay for when it comes to memory. Like generic brands and also some other brands like PNY just plain suck and he said that Corsair and Azzo were pretty good for the money but Mushkin was the best by far but it was outright expensive. I was wondering exactly how crucial 'top-rated' memory is to a system and does it play a factor in the successfulness of overclocking that system? I would appreciate some input if maybe someone has had experience with tinkering around with these factors. If so, let me know. Thanks ahead of time for all replys.

everything is crucial to overclocking.speaking of which crucial has some good prices on their cass 2 memory.i got micron myself at a comp. show.if you overclock your fsb and you will, your ram will also be overclocked you can change it to cas 3 in the bios if you have to but that kinda defeats the purpose for me.there are also other memory settings in the bios you can take advantage of but if you shop around a 256 meg of 133 will be under a hundred dollars.its really to cheap to skimp on, even if you have to get less for now ....just my opinion though!

I just orderd a 256 meg sim of noname cas2 pc166 I found on pricewatch. It was under $100 shipped and the stuff is very stable when overclocked. Look at pricewatch.com and find some cheep pc150-166 and you should be fine. Corsair is good stuff but it still costs more.

Is there a big difference between CAS2 and CAS3? Like should I go with one of the other or does it really matter? I have tried reading up on the two but never really get a definitive answer about their differences.

CAS refers to access rates or some such nonsense. All you need to know is that CAS2 is about 10% faster than CAS3 for about 1% more $$$.

on the kt7a you can change between cas2 and 3.to shed a little light on the difference,think of the rpm's of the hard drive.when a peice of data is transfered the hd spins around 2 cycles to deliver this data at cas2.at cas3 it spins 3 times to deliver the same data,so cas2 is 33.3 percent faster than 3.good cas3 will run at cas2 on this board but will limit overclocking.for 10 bucks more on a 256 meg strip you get a 33 percent performance boost,conceivably the best"bang for yor buck"you can get.

It's my understanding that your cas setting affects the memory latency, when the CPU addresses the Ram for Data, and the time it takes the Ram to respond, kinda like a ping time or the time it takes someone to answer a phone. A higher FSB offsets the gains you get by running at a lower latency. IE-under "most" circumstances your MEMORY performance will be roughly the same if you're running your memory at 133-Cas 3 or 100 Cas 2, please bear with me, I'm approximating here... If you have a choice between High quality ram that runs at 133-Cas 3 or Cheap ram that runs at 150(whatever Cas), the PC-150 Ram (If it's industry standard) will more than likely give you a better overclock, if the High quality ram is 133-Cas 2, then it will probably do 150-Cas 3, in this case follow your wallet! In most cases, you're gambeling with cheap ram,but if its rated at a faster speed, your upping the odds quite a bit!

The performance difference between CAS2 & CAS3 is approx. 17%, not 33% like direct math shows. Just try: set FSB to 100 and CAS3. Run a memory bench. Do the same @Cas2. Check the differences. The reason for FSB of 100MHz: almost every chip manufactured today can take 100@CAS2.

It is true that sometimes some el cheapo RAM can go way over specs, like my 128Mb stick of Eudar. Rated CAS3@100MHz...

I am waiting on 256meg PC133 RAM from Crucial.com. I only paid 75 bucks for it and it was free 2day air shipping. It is the CAS2 type. The memory prices are dropping drastically and pricewatch is a good tool for prices, but not the best all the time. Go to crucial.com cause they are having a 10% discount on all memory right now and have a search for the memory you want for each MB out there. PLUS, DDR and SDRAM are exactly the same in prices right now. I hear EXCELLENT things about crucial memory so I am getting a stick to test it out.

The overclocking potential of a CPU is determined by: the core itself and the memory speed, since SPEED=MULTIPLIER (core) x FSB (ram).
The quality of the ram determines it will run at CAS2 (faster) or 3. If u are lucky, some cheap cas3 memory can run @Cas2 UP TO a certain speed, beyond which no matter what u do (like upping voltage) u won't get a completely stable system, which means BSODs,lockups,etc... Currently, I think choosing between cas2 or 3 ram has become a non-issue since the prices have gone dirt cheap: just go for cas2!

The best deal going is Crucial PC 133 cas2 for $68 + free 2 day shipping. This memory is right up there w/ the overpriced Mushkin and can O/C w/ the best of them. I have had mine to 158mhz and ran stable.