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playing with memory timings on athlon sys

Soulkeeper

Soulkeeper

Diamond Member
I built my uncle a comp a few weeks back
asus a7v333
athlonxp 1700+
256mb pc2700 ocz mem

since i built it i got to play with it a bit
here are the results of a few hours of playing with and benching with diff mem settings/timings
sandra
I left the fsb at 133 and the proc at default clock
mem voltages at the default because the asus board wouldn't let me change that (which is my only gripe against the asus a7v333) the original a7v has mem voltage jumpers but not this newer one

mem frequency cas/ras/cas-to-ras/cmd/ap Interleave turbo/normal sandra results
4:5 = 166 1:1 = 133

166 2.5-3-3 1cmd 6ap auto normal 2020/1912
166 2.5-2-2 1cmd 6ap auto normal 2040/1933
166 2.5-2-2 1cmd 6ap 4 bank normal 2040/1934
166 2.5-2-2 1cmd 6ap 2 bank normal 2022/1912
166 2.5-2-2 1cmd 6ap disabled normal 1991/1873
166 2.5-2-2 1cmd 5ap 4 bank normal 2042/1934
166 2.5-2-2 2cmd 5ap 4 bank normal 2033/1911
166 2-2-2 2cmd 6ap 4 bank normal NO BOOT (FROZE)
166 2-2-2 2cmd 6ap 2 bank normal LOCK UP (BSOD)
166 2-3-3 1cmd 5ap 4 bank normal 2032/1929
166 2-3-3 1cmd 5ap 4 bank turbo 2072/1970
166 2.5-2-2 1cmd 5ap 4 bank turbo 2076/1980
133 2.5-2-2 1cmd 5ap 4 bank normal 2022/1914
133 2-2-2 1cmd 5ap 4 bank turbo 2029/1930

the Turbo setting does more than change what it says it changes or it would not have had an effect on the scores yet it did
i also stress tested the stable ones with proc and mem burn-in stuff and had no stability at these above timings that didn't fail
5ap is faster than 6ap 1cmd is faster than 2cmd 4 bank is faster than 2 bank
I couldn't get 166mhz to run at fast timing so eventhough the sandra scores for the 166 at slower timings is higher than that of the 133 at fast timings I think the better timings are more important (since the comp would be running seti this would also help)
the memory claimed to be able to run at 166mhz 2-2-2 1cmd timings but wouldn't hold that at default voltage
if i could increase the voltage there is no doubt in my mind that it would hold the fastest timings
I couldn't help but wonder if the heat spreader on the memory was actually doing more harm than good
i didn't want to take my uncle's memory apart tho
and didn't mess with the fsb timings cause i didn't want to oc his system
don't get ocz mem
i am thinking that maybe the mem will have a burn in time
maybe after running at 133 2-2-2 for awhile it will take 166 2-2-2 on a later date
i didn't have the time to really run any gaming benchmarks I did run madonion on two different settings but forgot to write the scores down
i didn't put the sandra cpu bench results because their differences weren't really too profound
conclusion: the faster timings are far more valuable then higher clock frequencies and all
 
about time the athlon people are catching on in this forum 🙂
now we can see if intel is better or athlon...system that is what i mean...but i guess it is kinda comparing apples and oranges...but still nice to see what athlon system are putting out
 
i might have an explaination for your turbo scores....

that turbo setting might change what i guess ill call your 5th cas setting. (in intel terms anyway)

here is what you may actually be seeing....
166 2-3-3-2T = normal 2032/1929
166 2-3-3-1T = turbo 2072/1970
Click to expand...
does that make any sense to you?
 
yeah i just through an athlonxp 1700+ in an asus a7v (kt133) board and have it running at 1.1ghz now because the fsb is 100
right now it is underclocked and under volted to 1.63 to in order to save power cause the sucky 300watt psu is holding me back
i plan to get a good antec 430 watt psu and a good alpha heatsink
if that don't work i'll use my copper water block 2 pelts crazy benchtop power supply and copper fridgerator radiator with a good pond pump and two 120mm fans to cool the radiator which is rather large
i got the voltage mod in place to supply well over 2volts to the sucker
i am gonna cut the L1 bridges when i get the new psu
also i will alter the other bridges
lower the default vcore setting on the cpu so if i have to boot and it adds .3 volts it won't fry my cpu
cause if i am running at like say 1.9 volts or something it would jump to 2.2 and could damage the proc
so i'll fix that
also i will find the limits of this a7v board
that is the true fun of this
i had an athlon tb 1.0 unlocked and oc'd to 1.33 with one 300watt psu and 1.25 with the other the psu was the limiting factor in both situations
the voltage mod had come off during mid operation and fryed the cpu
i also had replaced a resistor i had melted off by accident heh
so i was stuck on my 600 slot a athlon for a long time
the only way i could oc that sucker was by making myself a goldenfinger device
i just didn't feel it was worth it so never did even though i took the cpu cartridge apart several time
the fsb couldn't be adjusted with the cheap fic motherboard either i could have used programs to manually set the fsb in realtime as well as the cache dividers but never did
so now that i got my other system back up and running the fun can begin again
1.6ghz will be my first goal
and i'll push it as high as it goes from there
since the chip is rated at 1.46 it doesn't seem too impossible
i'm willing to bet the yeilds on amd's .18 palominos are quite good
i'll keep you posted
i've been reading too much it's bout time i started posting more
 
Excellent post! 🙂 That's great info Soulkeeper, I was just wondering how different it would be on an AMD system, thanks!
 
I just took the motherboard manual from my uncle to better clarify some of the abreviations
i'll have to look in the bios to be sure of what exactely the Turbo setting changes the manual doesn't even list it
cas/ras/cas-to-ras/cmd/ap
--cmd is the sdram command control
--ap is sdram active to precharge delay
Interleave
--sdram bank interleave
turbo/normal
--I think the turbo setting moves all mem settings to the max 2-2-2 1t 4 bank interleave because i thought i remembered it making them gray after selecting turbo
but it still lets you change the settings so say if i set it at 2-2-2 1t 4bank in normal mode it would still be outperformed in turbo mode with the same timings so it must use some kinda unmentioned settings some sort of optimizations of a higher level. Maybe the stuff that is used for the turbo setting is faster but more unstable that is why they have a normal setting and recommend it.

there were a few more memory settings (like 15) none of which were directly performance related so i just left them at the defaults

also the ocz mem has spd settings of i think 2.5-3-3 2t so i think that was wrong since they sell it as 2-2-2-1t
 
this man has plan!

ok so among a few other things TURBO is changing that 2T to 1T.
also explains why the ram has a hard time keeping stable there too, its way above its specs.

that 1T switch gives awesome performance tho doesnt it?
i bet gaming benchmarks love it 😀
 
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