Is Overclocking A64 Asynch w/ PC3200 a Bad Idea?

[superkdogg]

Just like the title implies, I can ask for a 90 nm 3000+ or 3200+ and a motherboard for X-Mas, but my current RAM would have to do. It's Crucial Value Select (or Corsair-forgot which). It runs 230 on my P4 rig (2.5-3-3) right now and is prime stable at that speed. It may even have a little more room, since the CPU appears to be what causes prime errors (1.8 P4 Mobile running at 230+ FSBx12).

Anyway-How much of a hit would the A64 take if it were running with a narrower memory bandwidth? I think I'll do upgrade anyway and get new ram later, but for now I want to know if the penalties of using a divider would make this a bad idea for the short-term.

Thanks!

 

[Appledrop]

if you have two sticks of pc3200 in dual channel, that will be fine. I OC async and my system is fantastic.

 

[Concillian]

Because of the way the A64 handls dividers, it's not a major performance hit to overclock and use a RAM divider. If you are up to 230 with your memory, I would look at going with the 3000+ and running the memory at 166 (5:6 divider) this will allow a speed of up to 280 x 9 = 2520 with RAM speed at 229 MHz, assuming your CPU gets that far.

You can look at the AT RAM reviews where they do A64 benchmarks at same CPU speeds and different RAM speeds to get some concrete values, but the difference between 230-ish and 1:1 is not that much, like 2-4% or so.