Originally posted by: Shimmishim
I think back in the ddr1 days, more ram = worse overclocking... but it appears with DDR2 that is not the case.
Even for benching, most peole tend to use 2x1gig and get great results.
I can't really speak for whether or not this is the case in practice for DDR2 b/c I don't have experience with it, but more and bigger chips still increases the chances of hardware failure, especially when stressed.
I should have mentioned that I believe the reason people are stuffing more RAM into their overclocked rigs today (UP to 2GB, rarely OVER 2GB), is that the goals have changed. It used to be who can get the highest CPU clocks and boot into Windows, period. Today, the community is more developed/matured (or for whatever reason) and people are now shooting for world record benchmark scores. Since those scores are often dependent on more than just the CPU (3dMark, and even SuperPi for example), extreme enthusiast overclockers are now including more powerful supporting hardware to boost the performance of their extreme overclocked CPUs. I think it's a good trend. LN2 CPU-Z validated 5+Ghz screenies aren't that impressive to me. I want to know what OC I can shoot for 24/7 for gaming.
You still aren't likely to see much paired 2GBx2 DDR2 RAM kits in the world record OCs, because it is VERY, very hard to get that much RAM to run at good timings without pumping insane volts through it, and when you do that, you get heat issues. There is still a physical limit that people are hitting with DDR2, so I am not sure that it's true that DDR2 doesn't have the same issue. It's just that manufacturing has improved and that limit is now higher.
It will probably take Vista to really show this, since XP doesn't use more than 3GB for a single application or something like that, and nobody makes dual-channel 3GB kits that I know of anyway...