Athlon 64 X2 Memory Frequencies?

[skimike]

According to a recent Anandtech article, if you are running an Athlon 64 X2, and if your BIOS supports it, additional clocks will be made available. 433, 466, and 500 were mentioned explicitly in the article.

Does this mean that the CPU will "more natively" suport something like OCZ PC4000 (DDR500)? I say "more natively" since I don't think DDR500 is a JEDEC standard and I'm too lazy to go look it up since it's out of the scope of this question.

If that is the case, is it likely to be possible to get 4x 512MB sticks to run at DDR500 speeds? Or DDR466? Or DDR433? Or is that only feasible with 2 sticks?

Assuming we're talking straight gaming here and not heavy-duty image processing, video compression, database processing, etc, what's likely to give better performance: 2x1GB DDR400 with a 1T command rate (I'm assuming 2x1GB sticks will give a 1T command rate - maybe that's a bad assumption, I don't know, that's why I'm here looking for help) or 4x512MB DDR433/DDR466/DDR500 at a 2T command rate? At what point does an increase in clock speed overcome a decrease in performance given by a 2T command rate? Similarly, at what point does clocked up memory with 4-4-4-8 timings (as an example) offer a performance improvement over stock DDR400 with tighter timings of 2.5-3-2-5 (I use 2.5 in the example as everything I've read seems to indicate CAS 2.0 for Intel and 2.5 for AMD; the memory itself is spec'd as 2-3-2-5)?

Maybe these are incredibly stupid questions from an incredibly stupid person. Please educate me. I'm looking to build a system based on either an ABIT AN8-SLI or an ASUS A8N-SLI Premium (preferably the ASUS as I like the electrical switching of the PCI-e bus since I do plan on going to an SLI-based setup in the near future). Until I saw the Anandtech article regarding the new BIOS offerings due to the improved memory controller on the X2's, I was set on 2x1GB memory modules with 2.5-3-2-5 timings from OCZ. I do not plan on doing any CPU overclocking, however, if the memory controller supports the asynchronous memory rates of 433, 466, and 500 on 4 modules, I would definitely be interested in that.

Thanks for any insight!

Edit: Okay, I stupidly posted this in the motherboard section while it's probably more relevant to the CPU section. If a moderator thinks it appropriate, please move it. Sorry!

 

[rgreen83]

So many questions, no way I could answer them all. With A64 timings are generally more important than bandwidth, either way the A64 isnt exactly starving for better memory performance right now so it wont make a large difference. And if you are just building a gaming box, is 2GB ram really necessary? And I havent seen that JEDEC intends to standardize any DDR speed grade beyond 400mhz. Read Zebo's thread investigating memory timings and speeds on the A64, it should clear some things up for you, even that async doesnt hurt much in the real world.

 

[skimike]

Thanks for the reply!

I intend to use the host in a dual-boot configuration with Linux (for work) and Windows (for gaming). Which leaves me with the case where I'd like it to perform as fast as possible for gaming while still maintaining rock-solid stability for when I'm working. I'd like to squeeze every bit of performance out of the host that I can at stock speeds. Now, if the memory controller decides that it can handle async 433/466/500, I'm all for that. I'd just like to know if it is possible in a 2GB configuration or if I am limited to 1GB since that has a direct bearing upon the memory I will purchase.