good DDR2 advice

[johncastle]

hi, first post here

im doin a lot of research to upgrade my pc, i want to go with the asus P5AD2-E 925XE mobo (1066mhz)

not sure on what cpu though, i wanna wait and see what comes out in the 1Q of 2005, but what i need help on is the ram. What would be the best config of ram for this mobo? I understand that it is best for the memory and cpu to be sync, that is a 1066 bus paired up with 533 memory. However, the asus mobo claims to support DDR2-771 "native", what is native anyways? and would the higher 711 spec be overkill in a 1066 bus? and finally, what the heck is latency 3-3-3-10, what do these numbers represent? is it better that these numbers are lower???

anyways, i want to pair up this mobo with the best posible memory specs. Im not sure if it matters if the cpu supports 800 or 1066 FSB, im not sure what procesor ill get, but ill consider a future 1066 fsb procesor upgrade for sure. Anyways i hope you guys can help me out here. thanks!

ps: ive read the anantech articles and i havent found the answers to these questions so please help out.

 

[biostud]

Any reason why not going for an AMD solution?

 

[johncastle]

Originally posted by: biostud
Any reason why not going for an AMD solution?

i do mostly audio work and for what ive read intel is better at it, besides im used to intel

 

[johncastle]

i just wanna understand RAM before i purchase anything

 

[johncastle]

can anyone help?

 

[imported_Computer MAn]

1. The lower the latency the better
2. DDR711 will run just like DDR533 but if you OC it will give you more headroom.
3. For an Intel the processor will need to be made with the 1066 bus but it will downclock I believe to 800fsb if you run it in an 800fsb
4. IMO go with an AMD right now, they are cheaper and perform almost as well as a P4 not exactly but close.

 

[ts3433]

A64s currently beat Intel in almost everything, so consider that, but if you must use an LGA 775 Prescott, get a motherboard using regular DDR memory (and heck, for audio production uses, I don't think you'd need a 925XE). DDR2's increased speeds come with a much greater financial expense, and increased latencies that somewhat offset this increase (value DDR2 at the moment is something like CL 4, while value DDR1 is CL2.5).