RAM frequencies

[acegazda]

Hey, I'm looking at an athlon 64 rig right now, in my sig and was reading up on how to overclock. In the process I came across an article that said its really hard to overclock your RAM higher than 210mhz for ddr400 and thats a problem since your fsb needs to be equivelent to that. First question: Is it really hard, or can I overclock them higher? Second question: Will it help in my overclocking (will I be able to overclock my cpu higher) if I get ddr500 RAM? Third question: Can you overclock higher with ddr2 RAM, in general? I'm currently decided on a pair of 1gb modules from OCZ that do 2325 timings, ddr400. There is a similarly priced ddr500 set of 2x1gb that does 3438. ddr2 would cause me to reconsider a few components, probably a more expensive MoBo (if I go with conroe) and procesor. Any thoughts on this?

 

[acegazda]

bump^no one?

 

[acegazda]

bumb^cmon, some1 has to have some insight about this.

 

[Billb2]

Amd motherboards use DDR memory, not DDR2. All specify DDR400 memory, although other speeds should work.

CPU speed and memory speed can be controlled independantly with multipliers and dividers. What you refer to as "hard to overclock your RAM higher than 210mhz for ddr400 and thats a problem since your fsb needs to be equivelent to that" (your English teacher would ask "What does 'that' refer to?") means that if FSB = memory speed, then the memory is running a 1:1 divider, which, is some scenarios, may be more stable.

In reality almost all memory will overclock. but is only guaranteed to run at it's specified speed. Some may OC a little, some alot.

The best advice is to buy memory that will run at the same speed as the FSB. But you can't know what FSB you can OC to until you try, and you don't know how fast your memory will OC either, until you try.

And to add to the confusion, all DDR400 memory is not equal, even if it has the same specification. Memory memufacturers use ICs (the little black squares on the sticks themselves) to build memory modules and they change ICs randomly (based on supply and demand..price!). So, with a typical purchae in a store you won't know which IC's are on the modules until you have hem in your hands (the Rev. No.s printd on the modules can be traced back th the actual IC's used to build that stick. Diferent ICs overclock diferently, some will run fast, some will run with low latencies some will bo both, some are in between. I think a little more reading on OCing is in order


The typical method for learning to overclock is to "Read the Stickies"
Here's a few. DO NOT read them all, you'll go stark raving mad! Pick one or two that appeal to you and read the "general" sections about OCing.
http://www.overclock.net/overclock.p...king-guide.htm
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.co...d.php?t=151373
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=263753
http://www.lostcircuits.com/advice/bios2/6.shtml
http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20823
http://i4memory.com/showthread.php?t=327
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=795444

 

[0roo0roo]

newer mbs coming out have ddr2. benifits only seen at much higher clocks thuogh. and yes, cr@p shoot. only one thing out of the many has to hold u back for it to fail.

 

[acegazda]

thanks, so is this memory good for overclocking?

 

[Billb2]

You (and I) can't look at memory and tell how it will overclock. The best bet is to search forums and try and find someone (or a review) that has already OC's the memory you are interested in. And it has to be the same spec, rev. No. and all. That will give you a "guestimate" of it's OC potential, but there is only one guarantee....The memory will run at its rated Speed (in this case 200mhz at the SPD tiimings programed into it) and nothing else. Manufacturers do not guarantee overclockability. They will only RMA if the memory won't run at the rated speed with it's SPD settings. If they knew that this memory would do DDR 500, they would sell it as that. You may want to read about memory "binning". An option is to buy memory that is rated for the FSB you are going to be using (so it will run 1:1).