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165+dfi ultra d + which ram?

Z

zkaudio

Member
Opteron 165 - 290

DFI Ultra D (unless someone has a better recommendation) 150?

help me with ram! I want the best performance possible within reasonable price. I would like 4 gigs, but everyone keeps telling me 4 gigs will negate any performance gains.

I have gone through several posts to get to this point but I'm ready to buy. I keep hearing conflicting opinions on ram! I don't care if it's 50 bux more for non value if there will be a performance gain though... i'd rather MAXIMIZE performance on this rig... I also need 3g serial ata's so if anyone knows a board that has this on it standard... that would kick ***
 
Both the Opteron 165 and DFI Ultra-D are great choices. It is a great combination for overclocking. However, just so you know, the DFI may take a little tweaking to get it to work properly. If you are a serious overclocker you probably wouldn't mind because you would appreciate all the BIOS options available. However, if you are the type that just wants things to work and wants to mess around with overclocking, think about a different board. If you do decide to stay with the DFI there are tons of people with the DFI board here and at other forums that will be glad to help you.

As for the RAM, I would just get some cheap G.Skill or something. They seem to overclock alright and are not expensive at all. I would not recommend going with anything more expensive because it is not worth it. The performance difference would be negligible and you can always use a divider so the RAM won't hold back your CPU overclock.

Also, what do you use your computer for to think you need 4GB? I doubt you would benefit with anything over 2GB.
 
I don't know if 4 gigs would "negate" performance, but it is definetly unnecessary. I believe that 4 gigabytes is the maximum that Win XP can address, but I don't know what you could be running to use that much.

Plus, the more ram you have, the more variables you will have if you try to overclock your memory. If you want the "best performance possible" and a "reasonable price", then stick with anyone of the major name brands, like corsair, micron, crucial...any of their stuff will work fine. If you want the best performance out of their ram, get their special editions, or something from OCZ with faster timings.
 
The computer will be used in a recording studio alongside a mac quad core... it will be interesting to see how it hangs against that beast. Money really isn't an issue here unless it's like a 500 dollar difference per component. I don't care if the ram si a LITTLE bit mroe for good stuff. I want high performance and stability. Unfortunately, I am thrifty at heart and can't warrant spending too much if it's not a giant difference.


The reason I ultimately went with the 165 instead of the 170 is that I've seen a gazillion 165's at 2.7 and haven't seen a 170 over that really.

The mobo, I went with b/c it looks like the best, plain and simple. If someone has a better recommendation, let loose. I don't need SUPER tweakability but I definitely need the ability to oc this beast to 2.7 and take the ram with it. If there is a BETTER board out there, I will buy it. I don't skimp on mobo's anymore. I also need it to have ONBOARD and not pci based 3g sata...

bear in mind thsi thing also needs to be quiet... which pushed me into uncharted territory lol.

so is there a ram and mobo that would be an optimal combo for squeezing every ounce of juice out of this opty 165?

or is the dfi the best choice already... also, how do the ram timings affect this whole business?
 
BTW, I really would use 4 gigs here and there... but if it's going to slow down the entire system performance for tasks NOT utilizing the whole 4 gb's... then I won't do it. The price of the ram isn't really an issue though... so keep that in consideration.
 
If you're doing some heavy duty audio apps, perhaps you will take advantage of the 4 gigs once in a while. I don't understand how having too much ram will slow down the system, other than the additional variables involved in overclocking the memory. When you have 2 gigabytes of ram and your system is only utilizing 1 gig...your system doesn't suffer because of the extra unused memory. Maybe I'm missing something.

 
I'm pretty sure that all Nforce4 boards will cut their ram speed back to DDR333 when you put in 4GB of ram. (I don't know if it's due to the motherboard or the memory controller on the CPU).

We've discussed this before: Linky
 
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