Micron Z9 based DDR3 blows away everything!

[White_Pawn]

It is my understanding that when you are overclocking you would only use a divider when you have to. Like for instance when your cpu has reached it's limit you would use a divider to either push the FSB or the ram or both to there limit also.

u are talking about a down divider.

For AMD skt 939, this was the case. Cpu would run at say. 300fsb while the ram would still have to run at stock, or slightly higher.

Now, with these ddr3, they are like a cpu. A cpu uses a multiplier to multiply the fsb to attain higher speeds. Same idea. By using an Up divider, you fsb may be 500mhz, but your ram could be 1000mhz.

 

[ares350]

how can the ram run faster than the FSB? where do the extra cycles go?

 

[JamesXP]

I think only the 680 has upwards multipliers for ram as it has 2 PLL crystals.

 

[White_Pawn]

my P35 S3L has an up divider up till 1066mhz.

My fsb may be 200mhz, but my ram will run 400mhz stock.

All skt 939 has up dividers as well. Your pc3200 could run pc 4000 specs.

 

[JamesXP]

Aye. It's BH-5 too

 

[ares350]

wish I could do something nice with my BH5 ram; but my asrock dual vsta board is crap I cant improve my OC with D9 chips lol(borrowed them); I tried, but ddr or ddr2, my e4300 wont break 2.27ghz. cant wait to give it the boot.

my BH5 treated me well, time to put it out to pasture though.

 

[Reefa_Madness]

"put BH-5 to pasture"...somebody gag that guy!


But, when the time does come to move to DDR3, here is one more choice...

http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=3053

Article Introduction:

Memory based on the exciting new Micron Z9 memory chips for DDR3 first appeared a couple of weeks ago and we first looked at it in Super Talent & TEAM: DDR3-1600 is Here! As predicted in that review, it was only a matter of days until most of the major enthusiast memory makers began talking about their own products based on Micron Z9 chips. Some even announced fast availability of the new kits in the retail market.

The reasons for this are basic. All memory makers buy raw memory chips available in the open market. Some memory makers do not like to talk about the chips used in their DIMMs, as they consider that information proprietary, but this secrecy does not normally last very long. It is rare to see a memory manufacturer with a truly exclusive supply arrangement with a memory vendor, but several companies have been trying very hard to do just this, and we may see more of these attempts in the future.

The DIMM manufacturers then speed grade or "bin" the chips to create one or more speed grades from a single chip type. Memory chips are then surface-mounted on generic or proprietary circuit boards with SPD (Serial Presence Detect) chips programmed with generic code or custom SPD programming done by the DIMM maker. This is why the introduction of fast new chips like the Micron Z9 often circulates rapidly through the enthusiast memory market as each manufacturer tries to introduce products based on the new chips with new twists that outdo the competition. This does not mean the memory you buy from Super Talent, for example, is exactly the same as the Micron Z9-based memory you buy from Corsair. Companies pride themselves on the sophistication of their speed-grading technology, their design and/or sourcing of PCBs, and their skill at programming the SPD.

Despite the real differences that emerge in memory performance from different DIMM manufacturers, the normal arrangement is one company successfully uses a new chip in a top-performing new DIMM, and then everyone in the market has a similar memory product based on the same chip. That is why every memory company has announced, or will soon be announcing, their own Micron Z9-based memory.

One of the more interesting of the announcements is OCZ DDR3-1800, rated at 8-8-8 timings at DDR3-1800, which is the fastest production DDR3 kit currently available. This new PC3-14400 Platinum Edition kit is specified to reach DDR3-1800 at 1.9V and is claimed to have substantial headroom above this speed. It certainly appears that OCZ is binning Micron Z9 chips for even higher memory speeds, along with possibly some other tweaks to squeeze more from these chips. The test results should tell us what these new DIMMs
can actually do.

And from the Article's Conclusion page:

Perhaps even more significant were the timings that could be achieved at DDR3-2040. OCZ rates this memory at 8-8-8-27 timings at DDR3-1800. At 2040 the timings of 8-8-8-21 provided stable performance with 2.1V. This compares to the Super Talent, which is also based on Micron Z9, which required slightly slower 9-8-7-18 timings at 2.25V to achieve a stable DDR3-2008. The slightly better timings with the OCZ memory suggests that OCZ is using more aggressive speed binning for their new DDR3-1800 parts than others are using for their DDR3-1600 parts.

Advances in memory technology are rarely as dramatic as the speed and timing improvements we are seeing recently with Micron Z9 memory chips. For reference we included our ongoing overclocking chart results for DDR2 just so you can see how significant the new Micron Z9 memory really is. The highest DDR2 we have tested is Corsair memory at 1315 in an EVGA 680i motherboard. Early DDR3-1066 reached a bit higher as in the typical 1370 achieved with the launch Corsair DDR3-1066. Timings, however, were somewhat slow. Then the Kingston HyperX pushed 7-7-7 timings all the way to DDR3-1500. Now, less than 2 months later, state-of-the-art DDR3 is reaching DDR3-2000+ at aggressive timings. This kind of progress in memory technology makes the original JEDEC target of 800 to 1600 for DDR3 speeds appear far too limited.

Some end users consider 7-7-7 timings a benchmark with DDR3. We set those timings and pushed the OCZ as far as possible. The DDR3-1800 reached DDR3-1900 at 7-7-7-timings at 2.1V. This incredible speed at 7-7-7 eclipses previous results at 7-7-7 timings. The OCZ, Super Talent, and TEAM results are close at all comparable speeds, but the OCZ manages slightly better performance, slightly tighter timings, and a higher overclock than the other two Z9-based kits. OCZ is apparently binning to slightly tighter tolerances than the other two memories and that is showing in the performance improvements.

Lots of good stuff being released...however, here is one last thought to ponder from the article:

The only current roadblock to DDR3 is the high price of admission.

 

[meionm]

pricy suckers

 

[Reefa_Madness]

Yeah, that they are, but I would expect that as production ramps up, for both the chips and the modules, there will be a drop in pricing.

Until then, I guess I'm stuck with my Ballistix 8500.

Think about this...DDR3 is relatively new and already those OCZs 1800s (900 MHz) overclock (1020MHz) to just shy of twice the clock speed of my DDR2's rated speed of 533MHz!

 

[MadMan007]

Total guess here, but I think DDR3 will be affordable come late next summer or fall and then commodified in late Q4 08 or Q1 09. Q4 08/Q109 is when Intel releases Nehalem which will be DDR3-only afaik and AMD will have a DDR3 platform as well thus making it fully mainstream and not just a specialty-platform Ram.

 

[systemhost]

Oh lawls, you guys make such big deals over such simple things. Buy it when it comes to a good price, it's as easy at that.

 

[Reefa_Madness]

Humor me...just what in Hades was your post trying to say?

 

[Sam__]

why are the timings so high on the DDR3 ram.....wouldnt it be better if the took like 50Mhz off and tightened the timings?

 

[MadMan007]

Sort of. Since extra bandwidth doesn't really do anything on modern - C2D and A64 - CPUs with their prefetch algorithms memory makers ought to emphasize latency over bandwidth. See reviews of 1333MHz FSB vs 1066MHz FSB C2Ds at roughly the same core speed which show that more bandwidth isn't very significant. I'm betting that the DDR3 standard was worked up during the P4 reign though and Intel was/is the dominant CPU supplier in terms of marketshare so bandwidth was emphasized. At the same time real latency isn't just the CAS rating but a combination of CAS and speed. A CAS 2x as high at 2x the MHz is the same real latency. Thre last sentence is really the important thing to remember.

 

[Reefa_Madness]

why are the timings so high on the DDR3 ram.....wouldnt it be better if the took like 50Mhz off and tightened the timings?

One of our members, deeppow, just posted his little analysis on this very topic...give it a read.

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=521047

 

[CCUABIDExORxDIE]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=2376096&postcount=1

the official names for all of the micron ddr3 can be found there.