Need a 939 D/Core board which does 4 DIMMS?

[rise]

Originally posted by: AbRASiON
Well let's see - I'll pick it up this weekend, I can't live without 2gb of ram damnit - surprisingly HL2 was chugging on me! so sadly I guess it's time.

As long as the darn Nforce 4 is stable with the X2 (I mean rock fricken solid - like my P4 with i875p) then I'll be happy

Anyone know about my other 2 questions? Scythe Samurai cooler on that board or the 20 -> 24 pin adapter? - any problems?

people use the 20 to 24 pin but its not recommended. of course if you have the psu its worth a try.

i can't help with the cooler.

Originally posted by: 2kfire
True enough... Link <- And this one is 4x512 compared to 2x512. In theory, same speeds/timings, so 4x512 should be better right, cuz it's 2 gigs compared to 1 gig?

i wouldn't think it would be better because your taxing the memory controller more. but again, you're only looking at ~3% difference. look through that thread and see the reults we had from 1t to 2t. <1-5% in most cases.

 

[2kfire]

350 watts is a little low... I would get a new supply for that reason, not because you'd have to use a 20->24 pin adapter.
As for the cooler, that website says sold out... Looks alright, but I think the big typhoon would be worth the extra $16 AU.
By the way, what are the rest of your system specs? I don't think it's memory that's causing your 'chugging'.

 

[2kfire]

Well, rise, I think we agree that it'd be better to have 2x1024 than 4x512. I just meant that the OP should consider that 400MHz @ 2T is not necessarily better than 333 MHz @ 1T. But the BEST option would be to trade memory, trade the 4x512 for 2x1024.
Or just use 2x512, and use the other 2x512 in some other system or whatever... 1 gig is enough for games. I only have 512. Games were chuggin. Decided I'd re-install the games to my RAID-0 array rather than the 5400RPM 20 gig drive I had and games are smooth as silk now.
Edit: HAD 512... Do video editing too, and needed more RAM for THAT, not gaming

 

[AbRASiON]

Originally posted by: 2kfire
350 watts is a little low... I would get a new supply for that reason, not because you'd have to use a 20->24 pin adapter.
As for the cooler, that website says sold out... Looks alright, but I think the big typhoon would be worth the extra $16 AU.
By the way, what are the rest of your system specs? I don't think it's memory that's causing your 'chugging'.

It's not a cheap 350watt - it's a nice shiny Antec one - fairly good quality and nice even power - the P4 I'm using it with has been rock solid.

I'll buy another one if I have to but I don't have that many components in my box.


As for the fan - again, I already own it! - I quite like it, it's damned quiet and working GREAT on my P4, - I just hope it fits on the A8N-SLI.


My system now.

P4 3.0 @ 3.0
2x512mb Corsair XMS
EDIT: and another 2x512mb already ordered - too late to cancel! doh.
1x WD Raptor
2x Seagate 400's
6600GT AGP
P4C-800E Deluxe
and 2 dvd burners

It's 3 drives, 2 CDrom's - it's not really pushing the supply that much.



Now here's the clincher.
I don't know a darn thing about AMD overclocking! - it's been too long.


My pal tells me I can "drop the divider" to make the ram run at "333" then bump the frequency back up - so the "HTT" is at 240mhz and the ram is still 400.
This will allow me to overclock the CPU ONLY without stressing the ram.

Does this sound right? - I don't wanna o/c the ram -specially if it's 2T and 4 sticks.

(thanks guys for all your help)

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: AbRASiON

Originally posted by: PeterFace the facts. PC3200 (the DIMM standard for DDR400 RAM) is officially sanctioned for one single DIMM per channel. Anything past that is YMMV territory.

I wasn't aware of that at all - that seems kind of ridiculous to me.

The RAM makers deemed it ridiculous too, back then, saying that PC2700 would be the highest useful standard, given its two-DIMM limitation - still, mainboard makers pushed PC3200 through JEDEC standardization anyway. They already had to push the voltage regulation window from 2.3-2.7 up to 2.5-2.7 to even get there. In short, PC3200 is highly fragile.

People like shiny big numbers, and tend to forget about the limitations soon. (qed)

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: AbRASiONI don't know a darn thing about AMD overclocking! - it's been too long.


My pal tells me I can "drop the divider" to make the ram run at "333" then bump the frequency back up - so the "HTT" is at 240mhz and the ram is still 400.
This will allow me to overclock the CPU ONLY without stressing the ram.

Does this sound right? - I don't wanna o/c the ram -specially if it's 2T and 4 sticks.

(thanks guys for all your help)

First thing you need to realize is that the RAM controller is directly in the CPU, not on the chipset. Also, there is no FSB.

RAM frequency divides down from CPU core (!) clock. The AMD64 RAM controller doesn't let you choose the divider, but it lets you choose a speed limit - 200, 166, 133, 100 MHz - and then picks the best possible divider for that automatically. If you overclock the CPU by tweaking the system reference clock (what people falsely call HTT) up from its default 200 MHz, RAM speed will increase proportionally, and you can bring it back down by choosing a lower limit. Simple, isn't it?

E.g. when you overclock by 10% and choose the 166 MHz limit, you'll get no higher than 183 MHz RAM clock. (Not exactly 183 MHz possibly, depending on what core clock your CPU uses.)

Full exampe: 2200 MHz CPU. RAM speed limits 200, 166, 133, 100 translate to RAM clock dividers of CPU/11, /14, /17, /22, and it stays that way when you overclock.

 

[AbRASiON]

Peter:

Thanks to your post and a friends - someone has brought me up to scratch - I get it now.


10x multiplier CPU with 400mhz setting in bios and 240mhz HTT = 480mhz ram speed
With the 333mhz setting it would be actually 400mhz ram speed.

So if I use 2T, and "333" mode in the A8N bios I should be running ram @ stock speeds, cpu nice and quicker and 2T will help with 4 sticks

it SHOULD be ok according to a few people - so I'm gonna try that.

 

[Peter]

You may find that "HTT" is short for the HyperTransport Technology link to the CPU, _not_ the name for the systemwide reference clock frequency everything derives from (although many people, and even BIOS screens, call it that). The (actual) HTT also runs at an (independent) multiple of the system reference clock. Nothing actually runs at that 200MHz+X clock speed. You might need to choose a lower HTT multiplier too, also to compensate for the raised reference clock.

Then rid yourself of the doubled MHz numbers for DDR RAM - you don't, and the board's BIOS probably also doesn't - and you're sorted on the topic of AMD64 nomenclature.

E.g. if you want to overclock the CPU by 20 percent but keep everything else at about normal speeds, raise sysclk from 200 to 240, lower HTT multiplier from 5x to 4x, and lower the RAM speed limit from 200 to 166.

 

[AbRASiON]

ended up ordering a 165, let's hope the discontinued rumours are just that - rumours.


hoping for 2.5 - going to go for 270mhz and clocking the ram around 209 / 210 at most (might try higher sure but prefer lower for 100% stability)

this should be fun - also the A8N Premium better support the A8N or I'm in a world of pain!

 

[Steelski]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Sapphire.html

This has the ability to run what you want. any one of them....

 

[meelk]

Originally posted by: rise4310
1t vs 2t really means very little aside from synthetic benches such as sandra.

I was just about to point to that, thanks