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Lower memory speed to get 1T?

F

Fike

Senior member
I haven't tweaked the settings of my memory extensively, but I have noticed that it fails memtest when on 1T at speeds approaching DDR400. Would I be better off leaving the 2T settings I currently have or are there modifications I can make (like lowering the FSB) to get it to work with 1T. I am working with Photoshop where memory performance is key, so I am thinking that improving my memory rate would be a good idea.

suggestions...
 
What do you mean approaching ddr400...how much can it do?? Do you have a decent amount of ram divider options?? I mean is the next divider going to crunch you below pc2700 or pc2400 level speeds???

I would say not knowing all the story. Go ahead and test a file now at 2t with current speed..then drop the speed and turn it to cas 1t and test for yourself...Each app may act differently and if this is your app of choice you should tweak for it...
 
I will have to check the exact settings. I am running 230 FSB on A64 newcastle 3000 and it is stable (2300 MHz). CAS latency is 3. base memory setting is 333 (166), but I forget what that comes to when the overclocked FSB is factored. I think it is running at DDR 380 (190). I am using some mismatched memory: 1 512 MB stick of DDR333, single sided Crucial and 2 512 sticks of corsair double sided, value select DDR400. I know that I would probably get faster speeds on some benchmarks with less, faster RAM, butI am optimizing for Photoshop, so RAM is king.
 
I would dump the 333ddr...there is your issue...At 230HTT and 166 divider you are running overspec fot the pc2700 likely....Also more then 2 sticks may also force you to use 1t.

1gb is enough for most. use it in a dual channel configuration. which I believe 3 forces you into single channel;..should be also another big hit to performamnce...

2 stick of crucial 512mb stick in slots 1-2 (dual channel) with 166 divider cas 1t and whatver you can hold cas 2 or cas 2.5.....best performance there for you...
 
The problem is this:

with 1GByte of RAM, my photoshop benchmark (flattening 16 layers in a 512 MB JPG) takes over 90 seconds.
With 1.5 GByte of RAM, the same benchmark takes 3 seconds.

I agree that I should probably get a single 1GB DDR400 stick, but I will have to wait a while for that. Until then, I am monkeying around to see if it can be made to work faster for other benchmars where my improvement has been less dramatic. The Mobo manual does say that with more than one double sided memory module, it would step down to 166 speed, but so far that hasn't hindered my OC of the processor and RAM via the FSB.

Is it possible that a lower FSB would enable 1t? Would the lower FSB speed cancel the benefit of the 1T setting? It seems like wasting an extra cycle for every memory access (ala 2T) would result in a huge performance hit (cancelling out the "double" in DDR). Is that true?
 
yep that size of a file will do that.....

I am not sure you may need to try, but I think anything past 2 stikcs will throw it into cas 2t regardless...
 
If you need that much RAM for your typical workload, than either invest in 1GB sticks or maybe sell your newcastle on the FS/FT forum and get a Venice core A64 and another pair of 512 sticks. You still might not get 2T command rate with the new core, but you should be able to run 4 sticks at at least cas 2.5 @ddr400 speeds. Also, you will have a good chance of getting well past 2.3Ghz with a newer athlon64.
 
This system is brand-spanking-new. I will stick with it for a while. the 1GB stick is the most likely thing in my future, but first my bank account needs to recover from the new mobo, processor, HD and memory (yes I got this memory recently at Newegg, but I didn't realize the limitations that would be imposed).

I don't think I am bound by the processing power right now. Actually, I think that my limitation is in HD access times since huge images spend lots of time on scratch disks and pagefiles. the hard drive I mention above is on order...moving up from an old WD 20 GB 7200 at ATA33 to a WD 120 7200 using SATA. That may help my times too.

But again, any amount of tweaking of BIOS settings I can do to eek a bit more out of what I have would be great. I have got the newcastle 3000 running at 2300 MHz with stock cooling, at 46 C under load and 35 C at idle. I may be able to go a bit further without any huge effort.

But that said, I am not sure whether or not it is the memory or the CPU that is really the bottle-neck in that part of the system. If the memory is slowing the CPU down, overclocking the CPU may not be the best answer.
 
I din't know it was a newcastle but that rules out any dual channel anyways....I would just test to see if you can drop the 2t but then test it versus the ddr speed, it may not pencil out...


But that said, I am not sure whether or not it is the memory or the CPU that is really the bottle-neck in that part of the system. If the memory is slowing the CPU down, overclocking the CPU may not be the best answer.

This is not necessarily true....The A64 systems ganins bandwidth as the cpu speed increases even if you dont increase the ram speed. It is due to the memory controller being in the cpu and set by cpu speed. Even if you have to live with 2t clocking (up or down), you can gain bandwidth by increasing the clock speed alone and/or increase the clock speed and the ram with HTT boosting...
 
I don't think it will work. I tried setting the RAM down to 133 and then set it to 1T and it quickly failed memtest. I think I will bail on this effort and start working towards getting the processor to 2400 MHz.

I hope that hard drive will help out.
 
It can but if you are running way below spec now I dont think it will help and it isn't the real issue here...dont go above 2.8-2.85v with cooling the ram sticks better.
 
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