Dual channel or not ?

[legelf]

Newbie allert! Need a sounding board to see if I'm heading in the right direction. I will be ordering all new parts for my rig.

Abit NF7-S rev2.0
AMD Barton 2500+ (locked)
Vantec Areoflow HSF
Antec truepower 420w PSU
OCZ Dual channel Platinum PC3200 2X512MB EL DDR 2-2-3-5

This system will be mildly oc'ed for good performance and rock soild stability. Any opinions on my selections.

 

[Top Hat Theater]

Looks good. As for dual channel, you won't see a big gain as AMD systems just don't utilize DCDDR like Intel systems do.

~THT

 

[Drisler]

The chipset offers DC, why not use it. DC is worth like 400-600 pts in 3dM01.

System looks good...though I'd go for something along the lines of a thermalright heatsink..and fan.

 

[Sharkman]

Well.. Welcome to the Forums!!

The Mobo, Proc, PSU and OCZ are excellent choices. I agree with Drisler about the Aeroflo. It will do an ok job cooling the proc. You would be much better off with an all copper HSF though.

Thermalright is an excellent brand. I currently have to SLK-947U in my sys. The new SP-97 is even better than the 947U. If your a little tight on cash look at the SLK-900A. It usually sells for around $20 - $30 Swiftech also makes some killer HSF's but they are usually more expensive than the Thermalrights. It all comes down to price in the end.

 

[legelf]

Finished checking out a 900A, seems rather large. Guess I shouldn't cheap out on the HSF as I probablly will oc it for all it's worth. In that case do you think the OCZ will hold it's own.

Any suggestions as to what vdimm to use to obtain a stable oc?

 

[Top Hat Theater]

anything below 3.0

~THT

 

[legelf]

In recent post some have mentioned wrecking the sticks from to much voltage or even becoming unstable then never really returning to the same performance as before. Any thoughts on this?

 

[StinkNBreff]

I would not get OCZ EL EVER again .. Three rma's and it still didnt perform at spec .. Get Mushkin Level 1 Dual Pack kit .. buy it directly from Mushkin .. Seriously ..

 

[Jibby]

all i can say is. mushkin rocks. htting 248 fsb with 2-2-2-11 timings. GOOD TIMES pc 3500 lvl 2

 

[legelf]

Expensive! but I,ve heard good things about them.

Can someone explain what the 2-2-2-11 numbers mean. I'm fairly sure the first one is the CAS but thats all I know about timings.

 

[mrspec3]

I would not get OCZ EL EVER again .. Three rma's and it still didnt perform at spec .. Get Mushkin Level 1 Dual Pack kit .. buy it directly from Mushkin .. Seriously ..

If you went through 3 RMA's it's your problem not thiers. You either have a bad board or you just don't know how to overclock

Steve

 

[deeppow]

If you went through 3 RMA's it's your problem not thiers. You either have a bad board or you just don't know how to overclock

Steve

Lighten up Steve. I've seen a number of StinkNBreff's posts and he does just fine. Besides look at his system, they're clocking right along.

I tried OZ a couple years back and they never reached their rating either. Of course a company can change a lot over a couple years either to the good or bad. But considering my lack of success with them I won't be back for awhile.


legelf, would ditto the HS comments. I would use a different memory pack, either Corsair or Mushkin are my choices but they are two of the more expensive too and if your budget is tight then that becomes a problem. Numbers like 2-2-2-11 are called the memory timings and you are correct in that there is no standard way to order them. Best to look at each manufacturer to see how they define the particular order of their memory settings, it should be on their site somewhere. Also, this link has discussion of the various settings and links to additional info.

Good luck and enjoy it when you get it!!

 

[iLLestOne]

How do you switch between dual channel and single? I didn't see anything in bios about it, and haven't read anything about it.

When I boot up my system, it does says "dual channel mode enabled" or something like that.

Also, does dual channel mode hurt ur timings? Mine are at a sorry 2.5-3-3-7 right now. I'm going to try 2-2-2-11, since that's what everyone seems to recommed for the nf7-s.

 

[legelf]

This is what I figured out so far.

2-2-2-11 timings are very aggresive. To acheive these timings you either need very fast ram or more voltage. More voltage means more heat and faster ram means more money.

What I understand about dual channel is that it's automatically enabled when you fill the first and third dimm slots on the NF7-S. As for dual channel mode hurting timings ...if the sticks don't match each other in speed (even a little) the resulting maximum timings will be those of the slower stick...hence matched pairs!

The final results of my investigation into this matter is that I will be purchasing a Mushkin Dual channel kit of PC3500 2X256MB DDR 433Mhz level II cl2 with the BH5 chips.

$264.42 CAN at www.ncix.com in Toronto Canada

 

[deeppow]

How do you switch between dual channel and single? I didn't see anything in bios about it, and haven't read anything about it.

When I boot up my system, it does says "dual channel mode enabled" or something like that.

Also, does dual channel mode hurt ur timings? Mine are at a sorry 2.5-3-3-7 right now. I'm going to try 2-2-2-11, since that's what everyone seems to recommed for the nf7-s.

No bios switch, you have to move sticks into the right slots (1 and 2 if I remember their number right). Either slots 1 & 3 or 2 & 3 put you into dual.

legelf, gave you some good advice on timings. I'll add that the timings are dependent on your particular sticks and for AMD systems, the tighter the timings the better. If your sticks will go to 2-2-2-N then do it. As for the N=11 case, I've never found a difference in my rigs (the variation I measure from test to test is bigger than any diffenerce in what I set N to) but others sware by it so test and see what your rig will do.

 

[iLLestOne]

I have my RAM in dimm's 2&3, which should be bank's 2/3 and 4/5, but sandra soft says they are in 0/1 4/5. When I turn on my comp, it does say "DDR dual channel mode enabled", but Sandra soft says it's running at 64bits, instead of 128. It for some reason only tests 1 chip, instead of both. (sandrasoft 2004, demo)

I unchecked the "use 50% of ram during test" box too...weird...

 

[deeppow]

iLLestOne, are you looking at your MMX readings, it reads 64-bit transfer? SSE uses 128-bit. You might try CacheBurst32. Download from here. I tend to use it when I test.

 

[coolgeek]

go dual-channel