AMD790 Chipset and 4 dimms

[Scoobyd00]

It's time to upgrade and I was thinking about getting the 790X (have never run more then one video card) and the 965BE.
I am wanting to run 8 gig of ram and win7/64. Some have told me that I am going to run into problems if I use all 4 dimm locations.
Any truth to this or any way to avoid it if true?

TIA
Scoob

 

[alexruiz]

Hi there. It will depend on the CPU, the motherboard and the BIOS.
I am assuming you mean running 8GB of DDR2-1066. If you have DDR2-800 you will have no problem.

My experience running ddr2-1066:

I had a gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P (790X) with a Phenom II X4 , and with BIOs version FE it crashed. After updating the BIOS to FF it ran fine.

A gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 (770 v2) keep crashing with a similar CPU and 8 GB of RAM. A gigabyte Ga-MA785G-UD3H (785g) with that same RAM doesn't even blink to complain, running the ram flawlessly.... The ECs A-780GM black ultra also runs perfectly with 8GB at 1066 with the sep09 BIOS....


Alex

 

[Scoobyd00]

Thanks, I should have filled that part in.

No I am referring too the 790X DDR3 boards and running ddr3 1333 in like a GIGABYTE GA-790XTA-UD4 AM3 or ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 .

But your 1066 issue is exactly why I am asking.
Thanks.

 

[SparksIT]

I believe the issue was resolved with AMD's C3 stepping processors.

 

[chucky2]

It is basically the end of January.

Sometime in April/May, the 800 series Northbridge/Southbridge combo will be coming out. If you can wait that long, your long term value factor will be much higher than buying a 790 board now.

Just pointin that out if you can in fact wait...

Chuck

 

[Plimogz]

I own both the 790XT-UD4P and 790FXT-UD5P (790X and 790FX chipsets, respectively) and have run 8GB (4x2GB) extensively on both, using both a C2 stepping (720BE) and a C3 stepping (965BE).

I have never encountered a serious problem with running 4 DIMMS @ 1333MHz DDR3 speeds off of either the C2 or C3 steppings. But seeing as how better compatibility with 4 sticks of 1333MHz DDR3 was one of the C3's improvements, I would recommend you get one of those, if possible -- besides, it shouldn't be too hard, AMD are pretty much only shipping C3's these days... in the models which interest me anyway.

Yeah, so that's pretty much it. Oh and running 4 DIMMs and the 64-bit OS to go with them will pretty much knock off 100MHz from your max stable OC, based on my experience -- but I suppose that YMMV.