- May 19, 2011
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After reading this thread: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2236463
I did a bit of googling.
I found this article:
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/amd_am3_memory_performance_guide,1.html
Which IMO says that there's not a great deal of difference either looking for tighter timings or higher frequency RAM, however I also found this:
http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=2515.0;wap2
Admittedly it's a forum post, so I wouldn't treat it as gospel, but this bit caught my attention:
Considering that just about every AM3 board I've seen allows you to easily change the speed that the memory runs at in the BIOS without being regarded as an overclocking option, I find this a bit hard to believe.
- edit - checking the manual for my board, I do however notice that the option for increasing the DRAM speed is under "Ai tweaker", so they might regard it as a "do at your own risk" sort of option rather than the possible "use this setting if the board doesn't auto-detect the most ideal speed your RAM says it can do".
Thoughts? Has anyone encountered any other articles that examine the effect of RAM speeds and timings on AM3 setups that you would recommend I read?
I did a bit of googling.
I found this article:
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/amd_am3_memory_performance_guide,1.html
Which IMO says that there's not a great deal of difference either looking for tighter timings or higher frequency RAM, however I also found this:
http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=2515.0;wap2
Admittedly it's a forum post, so I wouldn't treat it as gospel, but this bit caught my attention:
Having actually talked to an AMD Technical Guru to establish their views on this subject, I can now state, with confidence that:
You are better off not trying to run your RAM above 1333 Mhz. when using an AM3 Phenom or Athlon CPU.
If you do so, you run the risk of system instability and even damaging the Memory Controller on the CPU.
Considering that just about every AM3 board I've seen allows you to easily change the speed that the memory runs at in the BIOS without being regarded as an overclocking option, I find this a bit hard to believe.
- edit - checking the manual for my board, I do however notice that the option for increasing the DRAM speed is under "Ai tweaker", so they might regard it as a "do at your own risk" sort of option rather than the possible "use this setting if the board doesn't auto-detect the most ideal speed your RAM says it can do".
Thoughts? Has anyone encountered any other articles that examine the effect of RAM speeds and timings on AM3 setups that you would recommend I read?