memory and overclocking

[Acedude]

like 90% of you guys out there who are upgrading, i'll be getting the a64 3000+ 90nm for the OC, to replace my 2+ yr old athlon 1800+. now i'm just waiting for either abit or msi to release their nf4 motherboard.

my question is on memory. i've heard that generic/crappy memory can be a bottleneck while upgrading. i've been reading pieces here and there, but still not quite understanding the stuff, esp. between bandwidth and latency.

from what i'm understanding, i can OC my cpu to 2.4ghz or higher with a generic/value memory, but in return i must sacrifice latency time. if i want to keep the latency at 2-2-2, my memory frequency will be limited and thus slowing down the whole machine. and i've read from somewhere that a64s' performance are more affected by the latency than P4 systems.

please correct me if i'm wrong. thanks in advance =)

my planned rig:
abit ax8 or msi neo 8 platinium (nf4 edition)
a64 3000+ skt 939 90nm
thermalright xp-90 + thermaltake a2017 fan
memory tbd =)
gf6600gt
nec nd-3500a dvdrw
logitech mx duo

 

[Xatrix]

Read this

and

This

 

[Acedude]

haven't gotten around to read the articles; will do tonight =)

also, this is what i found on the OCZ forums:

Remember that the A64 is not like a P4 at all. It doesn't require tons of bandwidth to do it's job. A reasonable memory overclock will do the trick. The need for tight RAS to CAS and TRP settings outweighs the need for speed.

is that correct?

keep in mind that if the performance isn't too much of a gap, i'd rather stick with a lower budgeted ram (aka corsair valueram) and try to lower the latency a bit, as i'm a college student and money is hard to come by =) but if the extra bandwidth from OCing helps alot, i'd be willing to spend the extra $100 for a crucial ballistix or some ocz.

thanks

 

[stelleg151]

I am 100 percent with ya Acedude, been worrying the same thing about the same setup. Those articles helped me a little, but it would be nice to see a performance comparison between some value ram and some of the good stuff. The thing that I noticed was that the performance difference with a FX-53 w/ddr533 vs w/ddr400 was like 1-2 percent in games. But then again that was all with the nice ram, so efficiency and timings will be different at DDR400, so its hard to know what to do.....

 

[Acedude]

still looking for an answer so,

back up it goes

 

[Concillian]

There is no clear 'answer'

Look at the benchmarks fro different memory speeds at teh same CPU speed they get from the articles Xatrix linked and determine if the performance benefit is worth the price to you.

The difference between 200 and 240 MHz is small when you figure that at 240MHz you will have to run higher latency. In reality value RAM at 200 MHz is probably an imperceptible difference from RAM that costs ~$100/gig more at 240 MHz. You can figure percentages from the values AT has in the reviews that were linked and determine if those kinds of performance increases are worth the costs involved.

Have you even looked at the links yet? Pretty much gives you everything you need there.