K10 overclocking questions

What exactly are ganged and unganged memory modes? What would give better real world performance (RWP)? What would be the best option for 4 DIMMs? Does this stress the NB or the IMC?

I heard that overclocking the NB bus can result in faster L3 cache latency/bandwidth, would that increase RWP?

Can the NB Speed exceed the HT Link Speed?

What is the maximum HT Link speed of a X4 9550, and will overclocking it give any RWP?

What factors in theoretical RAM speed, i.e. DDR2-800 dual channel rated for 12800 MB/s, not hitting the maximum in benchmarks? Is this the so called von Neumann bottleneck?

Generally my philosophy is before I overclock I find the bottlenecks. This is kind of hard since there is nothing to monitor Bus/RAM bandwidth. You can however monitor CPU and GPU utilization.

i belive the stock HT link of a phenom is 2600, if they are any thing like the older processors you might only be able to get about 100-300 extra Mhz out of it and its in reality a limitation of the motherboard.

i noticed when i overclocked a AM2 processor on an AM2+ mobo i didnt have to worry about the HT link and mine is running at 1550Mhz, on my regular AM2 board it was only ~1100Mhz before things went to crap, and i also did a test of hardware latencies load times and bandwidth for some one and the difference between stock (1000) and OCed (1550) there really wasnt hardly any difference at all. mabe about 3 more meg/sec on the ram and that was pretty much it.
and the way i see it (which is probally wrong) the HT link IS the NB speed

as for the rest of your question i dont know

Ganged memory is 128-bit single channel; unganged is the standard 64-bit dual channel. Which one is better depends on the apps you're running. Generally speaking, unganged is better for games but ganged is sometimes better for memory intense apps like video editing.

Four sticks stress the IMC, you're better off using two sticks. Best option for four DIMMs is a matched set - same brand, same model, bought at the same time from the same place. The closer they are in the production line the better chance of them being "matched" to each other, which should increase the OC.

Overclocking the NB increases almost everything (including memory performance) because of the L3 latency. Crank it as far as you can but remember, CPU speed is still king.

I run mine with the HT Link turned down to 1400 MHz and the NB as fast as I can get it without compromising the CPU OC.

As noted above I never OC the HT Link on a Phenom. If anything I turn it down b/c it usually allows a higher NB speed. Even on the Phenoms the HT Link speed is the least important value.

I'll let the RAM techie guys answer that one but you might try making a new thread in the RAM section.

RAM bandwidth can be measured using Everest or MemTest but AFAIK there is no program that monitors and logs RAM bandwidth ...