Ram for a nforce2 motherboard and barton processor

[Zarick]

I need a good 512k ram set or single chip for a nforce2 motherboard setup. I havent decided on the an35n, the af7-s, or the albatron pro 2 board so I would like a ram chip that was compatible and ran extremely well with all 3. I am not an overclocker so that isn't a huge issue. Help?

 

[Zarick]

any good suggestions on ram? I was looking at ocz, kingston, and buffalo. I really don't know what the diff is though or why one is quality over the other.

 

[NokiaDude]

Kingston HyperX. It's super fast memory with stock CAS timings of 2-2-2-5-1T.

 

[Ionizer86]

Bad ram causes instability and other problems. Give you an example. A bud didn't know what he was doing and got PC3200 Ultra brand ram with Elixir chips. Well, it was very unstable, so he let me try it. I could barely get it above 170. Past that, regardless of voltage, timings, etc, the system became very unstable. I even had my pc boot off it wiht a corrupt windows file.

Moral: stick to good ram.

Now, you're considering different brands of good ram. OCZ, Kingston, Buffalo etc. OCZ tends to be expensive since it oc's far and does good timings. If you're ocing, it may be worth it. Buffalo is a cheap brand ram that uses/used awesome Winbond chips. They gave really good performance for very reasonable money. Kingston Valueram is perfectly fine at default settings, though it may or may not run good timings and overclock far. Personally, I've been lucky with both valueram sticks I've worked with: they could both run one speed grade higher than advertised (2100-->2700; 2700-->3200). It's up to you.

 

[ucdbiendog]

corsair TWINX ram runs great with the nforce 2 chipset. but OCZ, kingston also make good ram too.

 

[NokiaDude]

Kingston has some incredibly awesome RAM. Pick up the HyperX if you want to run the most aggresive timings like me. I'm running CAS timings of 2-2-2-6-1T, the fastest my motherboard will do. It's extremely stable since I'm not OC'ing. Other than HyperX, Corsair has some good stuff too.

On the motherboard, I'd go with the Abit NF7-S. It's a great all around performer and it has excellent reviews from all the major hardware review sites. Also it's ready to OC if you feel like it in the future.

 

[Zarick]

so if I am not overclocking should I be looking at something like buffalo. and should I get 2x256 or 1x512?

 

[Rukkian]

I would go with 512 for now, then later you could add another if wanted/needed. Dual channel makes little difference with AMD processors.

 

[NokiaDude]

Originally posted by: Zarick
so if I am not overclocking should I be looking at something like buffalo. and should I get 2x256 or 1x512?

Eh, Buffalo RAM is okay, but Corsair would be a better choice.

 

[Neyd3400]

I used to think all ram was the same, but I got a stick of HyperX and it works great. I also had have a pair of 256 mb pc2100 valueram from Kingston running dual channel at 190, I think I could get more out of them with a newer board.

 

[Matthias99]

I've got Geil PC3200 running on my AN35N-Ultra; it works just fine if you don't want to OC it too much. I doubt you'll go wrong with Buffalo, Corsair, OCZ, Crucial, Kingston, or Mushkin, though. Memory with tight timings (CL2-2-2-5) is nice, but when I was shopping for it, the huge premiums over 2-3-3-6 RAM were just not worth the small performance boosts (at least on AMD -- it's somewhat more important for overclocked P4C systems).

On the motherboard, I'd go with the Abit NF7-S. It's a great all around performer and it has excellent reviews from all the major hardware review sites. Also it's ready to OC if you feel like it in the future.

The NF7-S is a nice board, but I've had no problems getting the Shuttle to overclock decently (although with pretty crappy RAM timings up above 200FSB, but I'm blaming the cheap-ass RAM I got). The only thing holding it back (as far as I can tell) is that you can't really up the RAM voltage enough -- the BIOS only goes up to 2.7V.

 

[Brian48]

I haven't had any problems with either Winbond based DIMMs or Kreton Value brand from newegg. I have had some issues with Generic Samsung sticks though. I especially like the Kreton stuff when not overclocking the memory itself too much.