Could u explain?

Hi,

Im hoping to get a p4 2.4 c (800fsb) cpu with either a springdale or canterwood mobo.

1)I dont know anything about latency, or ram settings (eg 2-2-4-4....) or

2)how exactly dual channel mobos work in comparison wtih single channel mobos (I just cant seem to grasp the idea of how the bandwidth is split and used). I want to overclock the cpu as much as possible and Ive seen a review of a guy who runs at 320mhz fsb (someone told me that he was prob using a divider... whats a divider???). The guy from the review was using pc3200 ram. How is it possible to run 200mhz ram so high?

3)Also, why are ram kits more expensive then 2 single ram sticks..

4)How does double sided ram differ in operation from single sided ram?

5)Is enhanced latency BS or is it worth the extra $?

6)What type of ram do you think I should get ? pc3200, pc3500??

7)Ive heard that OCZ is crap, is it true?

Id much appreciate it if you would take the time and answer my questions instead of directing me to read the forums.... unless you know of a relavent link. Thank you.

5) No, it's just guarenteed to run at those speeds. (Ex. you can buy cas 2.5 ram and still run it at cas 2 without problems.)

6) With a chip like that and it being intel I would say that pc3500 would be a good thing

7) It all depends on who you talk too. I have never owned any but I have heard of it being "crap", but I have also heard of some good things. Personally I like Mushkin.

ViolaDude said:

Hi,

Im hoping to get a p4 2.4 c (800fsb) cpu with either a springdale or canterwood mobo.

1)I dont know anything about latency, or ram settings (eg 2-2-4-4....)

Click to expand...

Latency is how long it takes for something to start happening (data transfer in this case). Bandwidth is how fast it happens once it starts. The various latency figures describe the latency in clock cycles for various aspects of the memory subsystem's operation. Lower numbers are better, but require better ram. Often you can run the memory faster by setting the latency settings higher, at times this is beneficial and at others it is not.

ViolaDude said:

2)how exactly dual channel mobos work in comparison wtih single channel mobos (I just cant seem to grasp the idea of how the bandwidth is split and used). I want to overclock the cpu as much as possible and Ive seen a review of a guy who runs at 320mhz fsb (someone told me that he was prob using a divider... whats a divider???). The guy from the review was using pc3200 ram. How is it possible to run 200mhz ram so high?

Click to expand...

Dual channel architectures simply run two sticks of memory in parallel, somewhat analogous to a RAID 0 disk array. Blocks of data are alternatively written (or read from) each of the two sticks, allowing two transfers to occur at once. This doubles the effective bandwidth, but can only hurt the latency.

It is not possible to run current 200MHz ram at 320MHz. That is the reason for the divider, or more accurately a multiplier less than 1. You might run a .75 multiplier, so that the 320MHz fsb is multiplied by .75 to derive a 240MHz clock rate for the memory. This is known as an asynchronous memory mode, indicating that the memory is not being run at the same rate as the fsb.

ViolaDude said:

3)Also, why are ram kits more expensive then 2 single ram sticks..

Click to expand...

Because they see you coming. As the old saying goes, a sucker is born every minute. If you buy two sticks of memory of the same kind at the same time there is no reason they should not work together, even if they are not an officially designated (and marked-up) pair.

ViolaDude said:

4)How does double sided ram differ in operation from single sided ram?

Click to expand...

There is no difference in operation, only that the ram has devices on both sides of the board. Usually double-sided memory is organized as two seperate banks though, and will be treated by the memory controller the same as it were two single-sided dimms.

ViolaDude said:

5)Is enhanced latency BS or is it worth the extra $?

Click to expand...

It depends on the ram in question. Enhanced latency is a marketing term, it has no official definition. If the memory the manufacturer applies it to is better, than it might be worth more to you. You need to find out if the specific type you are interested in is indeed better, there is no rule of thumb you can apply.

ViolaDude said:

6)What type of ram do you think I should get ? pc3200, pc3500??

Click to expand...

Due to the very high fsb capabilites of the canterwood and springdale chipsets, you would be smart to get the highest performance ram that you can afford. Ram in general is cheap these days, so buy the fastest grade that is priced reasonably.

ViolaDude said:

7)Ive heard that OCZ is crap, is it true?

Click to expand...

At one time OCZ was widely reputed to be junk, but their current products have been performing well. For intel chipsets though any quality PC3200 or 3500 works well, it is the AMD folks that tend to get results with the OCZ stuff good enough to warrant the cost. NF2 is very picky as far as ram, Intel controllers are capable of high speed operation with a wide variety of modules.

Thank you for all the information. I need a few things clarified though. What does each of the latency #s correlate to? eg 2-4-3-2-2, and how do you know what to tweak and how much?

Im still a bit confused with the dual channel mode. Let me try to explain it as best I can, and tell me if I got it right. Single channel mobos run at the full speed of the ram... lets say pc3200 runs at 200mhz. The mobo then multiplies it by 4 and you get 800mhz fsb. With a dual channel mobo, with 2 sticks of ram, each stick runs at 100mhz (therefore 100 x 2 sticks = 200mhz x 4 from the mobo = 800?)
Now how does the divider relate to this? could you use the example above to explain?

Im still a bit confused with the dual channel mode. Let me try to explain it as best I can, and tell me if I got it right. Single channel mobos run at the full speed of the ram... lets say pc3200 runs at 200mhz. The mobo then multiplies it by 4 and you get 800mhz fsb. With a dual channel mobo, with 2 sticks of ram, each stick runs at 100mhz (therefore 100 x 2 sticks = 200mhz x 4 from the mobo = 800?)
Now how does the divider relate to this? could you use the example above to explain? [/B]

Click to expand...

dual channel does not work that way...

it's like this:

let's say the computer has to put a 150 mb chunck of data in RAM...with 512 mb of single channel RAM at 200 mhz (pc3200) the computer puts the whole chunck of 150mb in the ONE stick of 512 mb RAM at ONE speed---200mhz----which means that will take a certain fraction of a second time (at 3000 mb/sec write speed for example, that would take 150mb/(3000mb/sec) or 0.05 sec)

however, with two 256mb of RAM in dual channel it's theoretically like this:

the computer will split that 150 mb chunck of data into two chuncks of 75 mb and send 75mb to one 256mb stick of RAM and 75mb to the other 256mb RAM stick both at 200mhz at the SAME TIME, thus it will take 1/2 as long as in single channel....(at 3000mb/sec write speed for example, that would take 75mb/(3000mb/sec) or 0.025 sec)....end result?---twice as fast (theoretically...actually it's probably not quite twice as fast similar to my RAID array of hard drives...26,000 mbits/sec with one hard drive and 43,000 mbits/sec with two hard drives in RAID (not 52,000 as would be predicted)

Oh, another question... about raid. Is the whole idea of raid to combine two hdds on one partition? Is there any speed increase in combining two harddrives in raid? Do they have to be a specific type of hdd to be combined?

also what about the divider. How does it work?

Oh, another question... about raid. Is the whole idea of raid to combine two hdds on one partition? Is there any speed increase in combining two harddrives in raid? Do they have to be a specific type of hdd to be combined?

Click to expand...

you're like a sponge

there are many kinds of RAID setups, however the two popular ones are RAID-0 and RAID-1. raid-1 uses a hard drive as a mirror and everytime you put something on the hard drive---it puts it on both hard drives---so you have a backup of your data made continously (no performance advantage though)....

raid-0 is pretty much the same concept of dual channel memory except with harddrives instead of ram...apply my previous post on dual channel to 2 hard drives in raid-0...

i don't think the hard drives absolutely have to match (there are probably exceptions)---but it's my understanding that it is better to match them (for timing issues---different manufacturers have slightly different specs)

also what about the divider. How does it work?

Click to expand...

if you're talking about the memory divider then i believe that allows you to set your memory speed to less or more than the motherboard speed...like 4:5 would me the memory is running 4/5ths the speed of the motherboard...

what is improved when connecting hdds with raid-0?

what is improved when connecting hdds with raid-0?

Click to expand...

the speed with which data is written and retrieved from the hard drive...in my case a 7200rpm ata100 60 gb drive went from 26000mbit/sec to 43000mbit/sec...thus loading programs, windows, and just writing and reading data in general is about 65% faster...

the concept is the same as dual channel ddr except with the data is sent or received to two hard drives instead of RAM...

can the hdds be different sizes? I have an 80Gb 8mb cache WD... Could I put a smaller HDD and will it work? Would there be a prob if I put a 2mb cache HDD with the one I currently have?

can the hdds be different sizes? I have an 80Gb 8mb cache WD... Could I put a smaller HDD and will it work? Would there be a prob if I put a 2mb cache HDD with the one I currently have?

Click to expand...

try it and see....i don't know, maybe...but you will need either a mobo that supports raid or a pci card that does..

raid-0 definately offers a performance boost.
idealy you want to identical drives. I currently have 2 western digital 20gb's in raid-0. one is ata100 the other is ata66. i do get minor glitches from the drives being different speeds and if i ever setup another array i would wait til i have 2+ drives that match.


i'm going to bookmark this thread as you guys just answered alot of questions i've had for sometime but never got around to asking.