Anyone using 2GB mem (4x512) on A8N-SLI? Please post details...

[davidos]

Can you overclock at all and what are your impressions? Thanks!

 

[GuitarDaddy]

4 sticks of ram come with a performance penalty on all current A64 CPU's, but this doesn't mean you can't overclock well. The limitation is with the onboard memory controller on the A64 chips. With four sticks you are forced to use a 2T command rate and usually have to run ram at DDR333 as opposed to DDR400. To get your maximum overclock you may even have to drop the memory divider to the DDR266 or DDR200 setting, depending on how high you take HTT.

If you don't have a specific need for 2gb of ram, I would recommend running 2x512 as the vast majority of desktop apps and games will not take advantage of the extra memory and will actually run slower with 2gb. But if you do heavy video editing/encoding, CAD applications, Graphics design, Software development etc... and need the extra ram, Just use a memory divider that will ensure that ram isn't the limiting factor in your overclock. CPU speed is much more important than ram speed on A64's

 

[Cat]

If you aren't overclocking, 4 x 512 @ 400 is no problem right? What kind of performance loss would you expect?

 

[blinky2004]

Still stuck with 2T Command Rate with 4 dimms, which dents performance slightly.

I've just gone from 4x256Mb to 2x512Mb and noticed the machine was more responsive and my Sandra memory benchmark went up significantly.

Also with 4 dimms it will default to 333 for the memory speed, not so much of an issue and most people find they can force 400 without a problem.

I tried setting my 4 dimms to 1T manually but it hung when starting to run Windows. Kyle Bennett (of HardOCP) has noticed the same thing with 4x512.

It's a limitation of the memory controller in the Athlon 64. If all the rumours are correct the next revision E (codenamed Venus) will an improved memory controller which fixes these issues as well as SSE3.

 

[Cat]

Hmm, that's terrible.

 

[mofrack]

Sad but true... *queue Metallica headbang*