choosing memory speeds, chips

[septiroth]

just got a nforce 2 board, is it really worth buying two smaller sticks of ram rather than one big guy for the 'dual ddr' feature of nforce 2? I mean is there a performance increase more than 5% I cant find any articles directly benchmarking a board with and without dual ddr.

also, i know running ram at a synched speed witht he FSB is usually faster, but what about going from 333 fsb to a 400+ memory clock?
333 and 400 ddr sticks prices arent that different

 

[LED]

I cant find any articles directly benchmarking a board with and without dual ddr.

C'mon Dude have you looked Here, Toms or esp Lost Circuits???...The benefit comes mostly when you pump the bus up to & beyond 166

 

[Ophir]

I believe most people will tell you that synched is still faster than running out of sync. Aside from many reviews to this end, this thread may be helpful. It seems that running 166/166 outperforms even 233/166 in some respects. I would get the DDR400, though, cuz it gives room for overclocking (200/200 being the goal) and may come in handy with future upgrades.

As to the whole 2 small sticks vs 1 big one, the performance increase is currently negligible, though future BIOS revisions may prove otherwise so it's probably worthwhile to just get two. The only downside to this is if you plan on adding RAM at any point, since you'll be wasting a bank. 512MB seems like enough for the next year, though.

More specifically, check this post:

Originally posted by: foxkm
I have done some benchmarking with different speed settings, here is the study details:

Setup:

Motherboard - Asus A7N8X Bios 1002 Beta 1
CPU - Unlocked Athlon XP 1800+ (Palamino)
Memory - 2 x No Name PC3200 w/ Ramsinks (Dual Chanel Mode)
Video - Gainward Golden Sample GF4 4200 (default clock speeds)

OS - Windows XP Service Pack 1
Sisoft Sandra 2003
3d Mark 2001 SE
PC Mark 2002



Setting 1:
FSB: 233mhz (466DDR)
CPU Clock: 1636
Memory Speed 155mhz 2.5CL 6/3/3
Sandra:
CPU Benchmark: 6078int / 2439float
Multimedia: 9064int / 9617float
Memory Bandwidth 2698int / 2450float
3D mark: 7888 3d Mark
PC Mark: 5105cpu / 4757mem

Setting 2:
FSB: 133mhz (266DDR)
CPU Clock: 1533
Memory Speed 133mhz 2.5CL 6/3/3
Sandra:
CPU Benchmark: 5709int / 2276float
Multimedia: 8475int / 8952float
Memory Bandwidth 2039int / 1908float
3D mark: 7625 3d Mark
PC Mark: 4643cpu / 3772mem

Setting 3:
FSB: 166mhz (333DDR)
CPU Clock: 1583
Memory Speed 166mhz 3CL 6/3/3
Sandra:
CPU Benchmark: 5882int / 2349float
Multimedia: 9733int / 9814float
Memory Bandwidth 2378int / 2205float
3D mark: 7906 3d Mark
PC Mark: 4484cpu / 4364mem

Setting 4:
FSB: 2000mhz (400DDR)
CPU Clock: 1600
Memory Speed 150mhz 2.5CL 6/3/3
Sandra:
CPU Benchmark: 6005int / 2421float
Multimedia: 8873int / 9383float
Memory Bandwidth 2387int / 2182float
3D mark: 7670 3d Mark
PC Mark: 4931cpu / 4317mem

Well, it looks as if these numbers show that the AMD athlon XP cpu performs multimedia / games much faster with the memory synched, regardless of the BUS speed
The greater difference between the bus speed and the memory, the more performance is sacraficed to align the data to the two buses.

I now just need to get some Corsair PC3500 Sticks and a Tbred B 2100, then we be rocking!!!

Hope this is insightful to many

foxkm

 

[AnAndAustin]

You need XP2400+ speeds to really make 166/333FSB worth it. Running your RAM faster than the FSB gains very little, KT333/400 used to be the best and gained 5% over perf, still better to raise the FSB and keep it in sync IMHO. Using Dual Channel mode on nForce2 yields about 5% extra perf although it varies, CL2.0-2-2-5-T1 is less than 5% faster than CL2.5-3-3-7-T2 but all these boosts do add up. If DDR400-PC3200 isn't muchmroe expensive you might as well get it for future proofing etc BUT it will run happily as PC2700 (333FSB) with ultra fast RAM timings. Do be warned PC3200 isn't official and generic DIMMs in particular are known to cause trouble with nForce2. So I'd either go for a good brand of DDR333-PC2700 pref CL2.0, get 2 smaller sticks to enable DUal Channel DDR if you aren't likely to wantmroe RAM for a good 12 months or so. If you do get DDR400-PC3200 your mobo manu should have a list of rec DIMMs.

 

[septiroth]

thanx guys...thinking about getting a geil 1T cl 2 512mb stick...any experiences with geil?

I was considering spending the money and going for the 2600+ 333fsb cpu...should i wait for barton?

 

[AnAndAustin]

Never heard of geil. Unless you're scared of o/c'ing look for an XP2100+ using TbredB (not TbredA) or an XP2400+ (certain to have TbredB) as these should both hit XP2800+ or higher. TbredB are unlocked so you can adjust multipliers at will too, you may need a slight mod if your mobo is very dumb to allow access to the lower rather than higher multipliers. In any case I'd def wait for Barton as it should be here before the end of the month (for real this time) and will certainly push down the price of TbredB CPUs.

 

[Ophir]

I have not heard very much of GeIL chips, so I can't say, but if I were going the DDR400 route I'd pick 2 sticks of Samsung original memory.. It comes very highly recommended in the best-bang-for-the-buck category. Other than samsung, you'll be hard pressed to find detractors of crucial, corsair, or mushkin memory (in order of increasing price/overclockability). Either of these will make you very happy.

Newegg memory pages: DDR400, DDR333.

 

[septiroth]

so whats the straight answer on nforce 2's dual ddr feature? is it worth it?

 

[microAmp]

Originally posted by: septiroth
so whats the straight answer on nforce 2's dual ddr feature? is it worth it?

Would these benchmarks help any?

 

[Sahakiel]

Speaking from experience, you're not gonna notice any difference between dual and single. Maybe if you're doing encoding you'll shave a few minutes off or something, but I doubt it.

As for the RAM, get 1 big stick at fast speed. Something along the lines of 512MB PC3500. I currently use Corsair's, so you can be sure it's gonna work. They also sell TwinX, which is two sticks that are guaranteed to work, but it's obviously twice as expensive.
The reason I recommend big and fast is future-proofing. At the very least, you're gonna want to work with default speeds on new procs. Plus, the way things are going, tomorrow's OS will consume 400 MB idling and games will require 500MB on average, so buying big will keep slots free.
Unless you don't plan on keeping this board long, at which point it's all up to your budget and desire.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Yeah I agree Sahakiel. A single 512MB stick of PC3200 is all you need to get, even that isn't a true spec but at least 400mhz ability should stand you in very good stead for a good while yet. Unless you really love nForce2's onboard goodies, by not running Dual Channel DDR you are in effect no faster than a KT333/400 ... of course the onboard stuff is great but there's also a large diff in price in most countries.