Choosing Conroe memory: PC533 CL4 or PC667/800 CL5 best?!

[Dance123]

Hi,

I intend to buy an E6600 Core 2 Duo soon, and want to know which of following DDR2 memory types is my best choice and why? I will probably get 1GB or 2GB.

Here are the candidates I will choose from:

1/ PC533 CL4 Apacer
2/ PC667 CL5 Apacer
3/ PC800 CL5 Apacer

They are all pretty much the same price, so which will give the best results? What will make the biggest difference and WHY.. the CL or Mhz?!

Some site recommend to take the PC533 CL4, which surprises me cause I thought that Core 2 Duo could really take alot extra benifit from the 800Mhz? How important is the Mhz really, like can you give an example when I would feel the difference between 533 vs 667 vs 800.. or is 533 just as performant on Conroe as 800 and should I take the PC533 with the lower CL?

 

[Ayah]

You really only need better quality memory to overclock. Standard cheap stuff is enough for most people who don't tweak their systems.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Crucial 10th Anniversary DDR2-667 and look no further.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
Crucial 10th Anniversary DDR2-667 and look no further.

FTW

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: Dance123
Some site recommend to take the PC533 CL4, which surprises me cause I thought that Core 2 Duo could really take alot extra benifit from the 800Mhz? How important is the Mhz really, like can you give an example when I would feel the difference between 533 vs 667 vs 800.. or is 533 just as performant on Conroe as 800 and should I take the PC533 with the lower CL?

The differences aren't massive but in general, slow DDR2-800 memory offers comparable performance to fast DDR2-667 with a C2D running at its stock FSB of 1066MHz.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/core2duo-memory-guide_6.html

And with the ease of overclocking that C2D's have, higher frequency memory would be handy to have.

 

[ChiPCGuy]

From my understanding, Conroe is more sensitive to frequency than latency (this behavior being *somewhat* reverse of the K8 architecture). You would be better off with DDR2-800 at CL5 than with DDR2-667 at CL4, according to benchmarks.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: ChiPCGuy
From my understanding, Conroe is more sensitive to frequency than latency (this behavior being *somewhat* reverse of the K8 architecture). You would be better off with DDR2-800 at CL5 than with DDR2-667 at CL4, according to benchmarks.

So get GOOD memory and overclock it. That Crucial 10th anniversary stuff can do DDR2-1000

 

[b00yah]

I just built my system, and I got some cheaper corsair ram. Same as you have cmdrdredd. XMS2-6400, and I find that id does its job quite well. I can hit around 900mhz with tight timings, or go up to 1000mhz with 5-5-5-12.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: b00yah
I just built my system, and I got some cheaper corsair ram. Same as you have cmdrdredd. XMS2-6400, and I find that id does its job quite well. I can hit around 900mhz with tight timings, or go up to 1000mhz with 5-5-5-12.

did you memtest it at that speed? orthos blend?

Mine fails blend but passes memtest. Maybe you got some low bin D9 IC memory.

 

[b00yah]

I have not run memtest on it yet.. Just learned about that program and I haven't put it on a disc yet.. But, I have run dual sp2004 and dual prime95. I have been benching my memory with a program called performance test. With it running at 852mhz 4-4-4-9 i get a score of 164.7, and with it running at 900mhz 4-4-4-9 I get like 150. I think my bios must be increasing some other timings to allow the memory to run at the higher speed? Any thoughts?