Dual Channel Memory on ECS KN1 SLI Extreme

[themisfit610]

Hey all - as you can see from my sig, I've got an nforce4 sli board and a 3500 venice. I have 2 512s running in dual channel mode @ddr400 cas3 1t.

I want to add at least another 2 512s, possibly 2 1gbs. My currently existing 512s are double sided.

I remember reading something somewhere about if you have 4 dimms, all double sided, you cannot do 1t?

Also, can you keep dual channel if you have 2 512s and 2 1gbs, or do all the sticks have to be the same size?? Is this no longer an issue with Venice? I forget these details 🙂

Finally, I cant seem to find anything in my BIOS (ECS KN1 SLI Extreme) about a memory divider. I want to o/c my CPU, but keep the RAM where it's at (doesn't overclock so well). Does anyone have this board and know if it has a divider? Thanks!

Thanks
~misfit

 

[Steaksauce]

You can have either 4 sticks of same or 2 gig sticks, but the latter is recommended cause of 1T. 4 dimms require 2T.
You can have 2 512s and 2 1gbs but again you'll be at 2T.
Divider is the speed of the RAM. Should be at 400 or 200 (depending on BIOS) stock and you work down to like 166 or 133 which clocks it down so FSB:RAM 200:166 for example.

 

[Peter]

There is no FSB. RAM speed divides down from CPU core speed, so with a 3500, your next available speed down from 200 MHz (CPU/11) is 157 MHz (CPU/14).

With two double-sided DIMMs per channel, you'll either get 200 MHz operation with 2T command rate, or 166 (157) MHz with 1T. If you buy single-sided DIMMs now, your chances for the former will increase.

There isn't that much of an ACTUAL performance loss from either - very much like there isn't much ACTUAL performance gain from DDR2-667 on the new generation AM2 socket.

 

[themisfit610]

Ok,

I think I understand.

I can do 2 512s and 2 1gbs, for a total of 2 gigs, all still running in dual channel, but at 2T (or 166mhz 1T - not sure what decides one or the other).

I'm going to drop the HT to 4x and see what happens....

~misfit

 

[Peter]

That'll be a total of 3 gigs.

Dropping the HT bus multiplier has no effect whatsoever on this.

 

[themisfit610]

Oh yeah.. 🙂

Yeah I dont know what I was thinking about changing the HTT. I dropped the memory frequency down to 166 ( the next available divider), and cranked the HT up to 240 or so....

Anyway, I have my system running stable a 2.6 GHz, It's been like that for about 2 weeks of Oblivion and Battlefield 2 (until I found out the key I bought for it on eBay was stolen and got it canceled.... grrr), plus lots of video encoding with no crashes and a 40c load temp.

Wow that was like... really easy 🙂

Now I just need an extra 2 gigs of ram..

~MiSft