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Need some Memory Advice

S

Silentsc0rn

Member
Hello, I am going to be buying 512mb of PC3200 memory very soon to go along with a XP 2500+ which I am going to try to overclock, anyway I understand some things about memory but my questions are as follows:

These are the three sticks I am looking at from new egg

Geil Stick 1

Geil Stick 2

OCZ Stick

My question is which is the best memory of course but, mainly which of these sticks is faster, because I have noticed the CAS latency is differnt for each of them but I dont know what these numbers mean. Also, if anyone has an alternate type of memory they would recomend? Thanks
 
Another quick question, from what I am reading dual channel isn't going to give me any siginfigant improvment from a single stick of 512 instead of 2x256, but if where to get 2x256 instead and run them dual channel, does the memory have to be dual channel optimized or is that just a marketing ploy? I mean as long as I buy two sticks of the same 256mb memory it should run dual channel just as well? Thanks again
 
i personally think OCZ is the better brand, and also, with CAS, the lower the better. For dual channel to work, your mobo has to have dual channel support, otherwise it will just run normally.
 
out of the three you listed the OCZ seems to have the best timings

as long as the memory modules are the same size and made by the same company they should run in dual channel just fine even if you dont get it in a kit
 
I have the Geil Value Ram you link in "stick 1" running on my 2500+ system. This memory works GREAT for me at the stock timings of 2.5-6-3-3. I set the FSB to 200 on my NF7-S and never looked back. It runs flawlessly and benchmarks above the 3200+ and right below the P4 3.2GHz. I did a BUNCH of testing with the memory timings...just about every combo you can think of and I concluded that it didn't make much difference where you set them.

One interesting thing with this memory. I was able to run it at CAS 2 no problem up to about 185 FSB. After that it wouldn't boot. At CAS 2.5 it runs up to 205 FSB which is as far as I've tested. It might do more. Also, I did have to bump the memory voltage up to 2.8V for stability but that's no big deal as Geil guarantees that ALL of their memory will run at 3.0V.
 
You do have to buy them in pairs in order for dual channel to work. The dual channel would be a faster than any single channel. I personnaly would go for corsair xms over geil or ocz. Corsair has beat out both of them in numerous tests. But if I had to chose between your choices I would go for the ocz.
 
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