Opteron memory question

[coolred]

Well I just won an MSI K8T Master FAR2 off ebay for about half what it costs retail, so I am almost guarenteedly going with the opteron setup. But I wanted to keep this setup cheap as I am on a budget. I am starting with just a single opteron 246, will add another later. In my search for RAM, I came across gigaram. Its pretty dang cheap at newegg, cheaper then almost every other brand, and the company seems like a great company, so I figured I would bite on it.

Problem is that thier smallest stick of registered RAM appears to be 512MB at 124.00 bucks. I will check thier site to see if this is the case, but this is the smallest stick newegg sells. While I will definately add another stick, maybe more, with the addition of the other CPU, I would prefer to just buy 1 stick now. Just wondering how much a performance drop I will see with just a single stick. So please enlighten me, otherwise, I may have to open another tab in firefox(that would make like 30 open tabs and its getting crazy), LOL. Thanks

 

[imported_whatever]

i dont know about the opterons, but i know that dual-channel memory does not make a big difference with the a64, and they are almost exactly the same.

 

[Mik3y]

yes, get the dual channel ram for the opteron. it supports it, but not as much as the pentiums do. socket 939 and 940 support dual channel, so thats a plus. its only socket A and 754 where they dont support dual channel.

 

[coolred]

I know the opterons support it, its my budget that might not support it, I want to know how bad of a performance hit I will see without it.

 

[DrMrLordX]

If it helps, Newegg also has this:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-150-602&depa=1

or this:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-208-123&depa=1

though the latter is not currently in stock, it seems.

 

[InlineFive]

Since Opterons only support DDR333 at max anyway only have Single-Channel will decrease performance. But the real question is what you are coming from because that will determine if you will notice the difference or not.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: PorBleemo
Since Opterons only support DDR333 at max anyway only have Single-Channel will decrease performance. But the real question is what you are coming from because that will determine if you will notice the difference or not.

Wrong, My Thunder K8 2885 with 248's support DDR400 for Opteron 246 and higher ! And my Sandra memory doulbled in speed to 4800 from 2400 when using two sticks. As far as real performance gains ? Check the benchmarks, I don;t have a good feel fo that yet, as I have only had this setup for two weeks.

 

[coolred]

DrMrLordX, your first link to the buffalo ram, I had seen before, but had heard of at least one person having problems with it in the board I will be using, plus I don't know buffalo that much. And its only like 2 dollars cheaper then what I paid, so not all that much differance really.

The second link links to the newegg search page, so it appears as though what you linked to is no longer there or something.

PorBleemo, as Mark has said, Opterons of 246 speed and higher officially support PC3200. The lower speeds also supposrt it, but only the CO or maybe CG steppings or better do. And about what I am using now, I know what I will be uprading to will be faster then what I have now. I will notice a differance even with the 1 stick, just wondering if its worth it to get the other stick. I mean how big a differance does it make.


Mark, thanks for the info. I expected there to be a differance, but double the performance seems like a lot. I know thats in a benchmark and still may not show very much in real life though, but I would think if its that much differant it would be noticable. I will keep checking.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I've heard some good things about the performance of buffalo ram, but if it doesn't like your board, then that should tell you everything you need to know.

The second link was to a 1 gig stick of ram that cost more per meg than the buffalo ram. I forget the brand . . .

 

[coolred]

Thanks, I went ahead and got the gigaram, now just gotta wait another freakin week for UPS to get my motherboard to me.