Quick memory question...

[Gokou]

are corsair still the dogs b0000llox of the memory world? and also whats the top memory atm?

DDR 400 or something? and if so whats its second number (ie PC3200)

[Gokou]

also, ffs cant they keep this stuff simple....

what type of DDR memory do i want (for top performance)...

i gotta choice of normal ddr memory or XMS ddr memory...

:confused:

[Rex-Kramer]

DDR 434 is currently fastest, other number is PC 3500.

To be honest i wouldnt bother with Corsair Memory m8, its just rebranded generic Winbond with a Corsair Heatspreader.

Every stick i have seen of it recently has been Winbond, with a stick of £110 PC 3500 being the exact same stick from the same batch £55 stick of generic stuff. That stick wouldnt even do 217 FSB at slack timings, needless to say that went back !!

[Lt. Sex Machine]

People like Corsair and Kingston cottoned on that there is big money in marketing this stuff a year or two ago and tbh for the most part it's a bunch of ar*e.

Quite often the cheapo generic stuff is exactly the same stuff except without fancy (pointless) heatsinks and the logos, they fire it out the back door when there is a slump and the far east has overproduced.

[Gokou]

hmmm pc3500 ya say :O

will a mobo like - http://www.asus.com.tw/mb/socketa/a7n8x/overview.htm - be able to cope with that? it says it can take ddr 400, but nothing about 434 :O

so what are you guys saying? just got for any memory? or is there another brand out there?

[Gokou]

256Mb PC3200 DDR Memory (Major) 54.00 63.45

just as good as

Corsair XMS 256Mb DDR 400MHz PC3200 Cas 2 - with Heat Spreader 81.00 95.18

:O?

[Lt. Sex Machine]

Well the difference in clock speeds suggests a gain of about 7-8%, my gut feeling is it will be more like a couple of percent, it may even be slower in real situations.

And that's assuming you can fiddle with the clock speed in the first place to take advantage.

The first thing I would do personally is find out what exactly is available at the speed you know will work (400) and see just how much in terms of stick size you can get for the same amount as a 'premium' brand.

If you buy some cheapo stuff it's likely to work every bit as well as the more expensive brands and it's not like it wont work or anything as it's sold for that purpose.

Notice also that your mobo has two memory controllers, so you would be better off buying two identical sticks anyway and gaining your performance that way if there is any to be had.

[Lt. Sex Machine]

Yup pretty much as good, or at least you would be hard pushed to notice any difference when you are using the thing.

A 50% price hike for something essentially identical but marketed is rediculous :)

[Gokou]

right - two sticks of 256 'major' memory it is then :P

btw, im right in saying that all the new mobo's have this dual memory stuff, so it woul dbe stupid not to buy 2 sticks :O? and also, it will run ok with a cpu running at 333fsb? :}

[Lt. Sex Machine]

Not all have it but it looks like you have the luxury on yours.

You would definately gain more by moving up from 256Mb to 512 as opposed to overclocking and also by running this dual channel stuff I should think you will gain more also.

And yeah it's independant of CPU speed so it makes no difference.

[Gokou]

coooool

i will leave you alone now :P

[Rex-Kramer]

Gokou

The 2 sticks of mem will be fine m8, if you are getting it from microdirect, which is where i think you might be getting it from. The memory is Winbond DDR 400, which is exactly the same as the Corsair, and i mean identical.

Its good to get 2 sticks from the same batch, the n-force boards using dual DDR like matched pairs, i.e speeds and ns.

Find me on IRC if you have any questions.

[Koppo]

Don't forget latency people. That generic stuff might be "just as good" but is it guaranteed to run at that fsb with 2-2-2 timing? Most stuff sold nowadays runs at CAS 2.5. A lot of the major on major or major on third I see at the shows sometimes even runs at CAS 3.

It does make a difference if you're an absolute balls-to-the-wall speed hound.

[Lt. Sex Machine]

Latency pales into insignificance if instead you have twice the memory and twice the effective bandwidth, if it runs a tad slower nobody is ever going to notice as the gains from interleaving and having twice the memory far outweigh small timing gains.

I defy anybody to say they have noticed the difference outside of a benching program ;)

[Gokou]

ah ha!

so the nforce2 chip is to do with the dual memory stuff? I said that to my mates and they hounded me :{ Cos if you have a board with the dual memory it would be a bit silly to buy one lot of 512 no? :}

i wasnt looking at micro direct - twas scan, but i will have a looka at micro direct now :}

[Koppo]

Using the 128-bit interface on the Nforce gives a nice little bandwidth boost, but nowhere near the "double" that Nvidia claims. At the most you are looking at 10-15%. Can't sniff at it though as it's free and coupled with the other optimisations of the Nvidia northbridge it's easy to see what it's THE socket A chipset to have on your board.

I thought that this was exactly all about benchmarks LSM? Gimme those numbers :p

[Rex-Kramer]

Yep get two sticks of 256 rather than 1 of 512.

N-Force treats it as 1 huge stick of memory, reading of one and writing onto the other.

Koppo

I got some Corsair XMS 3500 the other week, it wouldnt run at 210 at 2,2,2,5 let alone at 217 :mad: Had to have nearly 3 volts through it !!

Got some Winbond 3200 in my n-force that run at 5,2,2,2 at 217 fsb :D

[Gokou]

ouch0r... send me ur memory? :}

[Gokou]

oh, and link for micro direct plz! has it got a sneaky - in there or something? :O

[Rex-Kramer]

Gokou join #team_os now m8 for a chat about this, its easier than keeping posting

[[WiZ]Prodigy]

Better stuff = worth it IMO.

My Corsair XMS2700 will do 200fsb i.e. PC3200. It's fast as sh*t off a stick. Basically the more you pay for your ram the more you're going to be able to push it. More agressive timings at higher FSBS. Heat spreaders don't really do much but they look pretty swanky.

I've got a stick of Muskhin PC3200 with some very rude headspreaders on, looks the mutts nutts. Can push it fairly high as well :)

If you want the best you'd be looking for some Geil PC3500 or Corsair although I think there were rumours that Geil were bringing out some PC3700. Not sure though.

[Arachnamus]

Correct Goks, you'd buy two lots of 512 :-)


Edit - Like hardware, this became out of date by the time it was posted...

[Gokou]

like i can afford 1gb of ram :P

/me goes off to buy a coolermaster ATC 210 :}