4gb CORSAIR DOMINATOR TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF $119.90 AR
- Thread starter SystemPlue
- Start date
I know this, but the A-Data will reach 1066...it's just another option for people to be aware of. They can ignore my post if they want.
I think buying cheaper RAM is a good idea for most people rather than getting
PC2-8500 DDR2 RAM.
PC2-8000 is rated to run up to 500 MHz FSB, and it is pretty common that you'll reach some limits of CPU or chipset overclockability right around or somewhat before 500 MHz speeds have been reached.
The only useful reason to get anything faster than 400 MHz (PC2-6400) RAM is if you KNOW you REALLY want to overclock well above 400 MHz 'FSB' speeds, usually that means in the range of 440 to 550 MHz or so with very few people really benefiting from / stably achieving 490-550 range speeds in many practical situations.
The actual RAM access PERFORMANCE difference between running DDR2-400MHZ-5-5-5-15 and DDR2-550MHZ in read bandwidth / write bandwidth is really NOT significant to overall application benchmarks. Intel CPUs/chipsets have pretty slow write speeds no matter what you do (compared to some AMD models), and the READ performance isn't really that much higher once you go above 400 MHz.
So from a RAM performance criteria RAM faster than 400 MHz isn't worth more than about 5% to 10% extra cost relative to application benchmark benefit. If you have a CPU-performance constrained application that WILL benefit substantially if you overclock up to 500 MHz or above, though, then maybe you'll find some satisfaction in getting the faster 500 MHz or faster rated RAM. But given the extremely poor incremental performance to incremental cost trade-off, I would suggest buying slower 400 MHz cheap RAM and spending the extra money elsewhere.
PC2-8500 DDR2 RAM.
PC2-8000 is rated to run up to 500 MHz FSB, and it is pretty common that you'll reach some limits of CPU or chipset overclockability right around or somewhat before 500 MHz speeds have been reached.
The only useful reason to get anything faster than 400 MHz (PC2-6400) RAM is if you KNOW you REALLY want to overclock well above 400 MHz 'FSB' speeds, usually that means in the range of 440 to 550 MHz or so with very few people really benefiting from / stably achieving 490-550 range speeds in many practical situations.
The actual RAM access PERFORMANCE difference between running DDR2-400MHZ-5-5-5-15 and DDR2-550MHZ in read bandwidth / write bandwidth is really NOT significant to overall application benchmarks. Intel CPUs/chipsets have pretty slow write speeds no matter what you do (compared to some AMD models), and the READ performance isn't really that much higher once you go above 400 MHz.
So from a RAM performance criteria RAM faster than 400 MHz isn't worth more than about 5% to 10% extra cost relative to application benchmark benefit. If you have a CPU-performance constrained application that WILL benefit substantially if you overclock up to 500 MHz or above, though, then maybe you'll find some satisfaction in getting the faster 500 MHz or faster rated RAM. But given the extremely poor incremental performance to incremental cost trade-off, I would suggest buying slower 400 MHz cheap RAM and spending the extra money elsewhere.
thanks QuixoticOne....
i finally changed my timing to 4-4-4-12 on my 2gb set and i cant feel any difference in speed...
I was planning on getting these Dominators to go with a Q9450 and try to get 500fsb stable.... but seeing as how i cant even get my Q6600 to run stable and cool @ 400fsb you have just made me realize that its not worth it and i should just wait and see what 2009 has to offer =)
on another note.. is it better to change to a 64-bit OS when running 4gb ram or does it not really matter... especially in terms of playing games?
i finally changed my timing to 4-4-4-12 on my 2gb set and i cant feel any difference in speed...
I was planning on getting these Dominators to go with a Q9450 and try to get 500fsb stable.... but seeing as how i cant even get my Q6600 to run stable and cool @ 400fsb you have just made me realize that its not worth it and i should just wait and see what 2009 has to offer =)
on another note.. is it better to change to a 64-bit OS when running 4gb ram or does it not really matter... especially in terms of playing games?
Yes, agreed, at $99 total shipped cost for 2x2GB of those PC2-8000 DIMMs they're the best deal I presently know of for decent quality PC2-8000 500 MHz rated memory.
One of the cheapest present deals on decent PC2-6400 400 MHz rated memory is this for $34 per 2GB DIMM, or around $70 / 2x2GB 4GB set:
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=T8UB2GC5
So basically it's about $25/4GB less expensive to go with 4GB PC2-6400 vs 4GB PC2-8000, which isn't too bad of a price premium on the performance guaranteed memory if you really need 500 MHz clock speeds to get a desired CPU O/C.
On the other hand with a bit of loosened timings you could probably get the cheaper PC2-6400 memory close to 500 MHz, and if that's the limit of your CPU O/C then that is probably adequate for many people and will save them a bit of cash.
At the moment I guess I'd have to suggest the PC2-8000 $99/4GB deal though for people getting new Wolfdale / Yorkfield CPUs with multipliers in the x8 range so they could likely benefit from close to 500 MHz operating speeds. Otherwise, the cheaper stuff may work just as well for clocks under 500 MHz, though at these prices the difference isn't quite so bad.
That said, I just bought another 8GB of the cheaper PC2-6400 DIMMs and one of those IP35-E $60 motherboards, and I'll be looking for a closeout sale around $200 for a Q6600-G0 since those CPUs can't typically go much faster than 400-500 MHz anyway so I figured I'd save money on the older CPU technology and older RAM technology since they're well matched.
You're welcome, I'm glad to see that your system is working well for you. Yes, those Q6600s are beasts and they perform quite well even at modest RAM speeds given all their cache and all the cores. I'm running a couple of the G0s on the 400 MHz RAM and they're doing fine for me. I really didn't notice too much difference even between running the RAM at 333 vs 400 vs 425 etc.
The Q9450 is nice, and I can see the temptation to try to get that to 500 MHz with PC2-8000 RAM especially now that Newegg has lowered the price on it to a more reasonable $99/4G as opposed to the previous $140+ level which was just way too high to be cost effective.
I think it remains to be seen whether the Q9450's will tend to have "FSB walls" as common limitations preventing a lot of people from getting to 500 FSB stable; some early reports on the engineering sample chips do indicate that some people have had problems getting them stable past 450-475 type of speeds, but who knows what the common experience will be in another 3 weeks+.
Now the QX9650 does commonly hit 4.1 GHz+ speeds, but that's due to its higher / unlocked multiplier; I've seldom seen people benching it above 425 MHz FSB speed, they don't need to, they just raise the CPU multiplier to x9, x10, x11, whatever.
I think if you have not YET purchased a new OS, but need to do so, I'd certainly go with a 64 bit version of Vista if you're buying a Retail version. The reason is simply because you can then use it in the future PC in which case you're almost certain to have more than the 4GB you might buy today.
If you have exactly 4GB then yeah you'll lose about 0.5-1.0 GB of useful RAM because of the address space for your video card and PCI peripherals etc. if you run XP32 or Vista32. It isn't a huge loss, but it's something.
Most games and programs I have run decently well under Vista 64 today and for the past several months I've used it. It is not QUITE as compatable in some cases as would be on XP32, but for the most part they're just minor easily worked around details not so much about 64 vs 32, but more about Vista vs XP in general.
On the other hand if you already have a copy of XP32 you could use on your 4GB system, I'd say there's definitely no rush to upgrade to Vista 64 if you have to lay out much money to do it. There are some benefits to Vista 64 over XP32 with 4GB memory installed, but
nothing really earth shaking, since there are a few tradeoffs with Vista vs XP too for the moment.
The reason I'd say Vista 64 is a great choice, though, is really only if / when you're going to upgrade to more than 4GB memory, in which case, I think you could do it pretty confidently that everything is for the most part going to work / perform well.
Now for LINUX or whatever, I'd say it isn't even a question, run 64 bit, it works great, no reservations whatsoever.
Got mine yesterday and could raise my overclock and not get BSOD that the ballistic were giving me.
Will have to play more and get back here. Happy so far.
Will have to play more and get back here. Happy so far.
I actually like these modules. I wanted these originally, but they didn't go on sale until just recently. I'm happy with my OCZ SLI modules as well. They're both good options if you're looking for great quality 4 GB kits.
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