Socket 754 mobos and memories,please help me,i'm confused

[dojoz]

Hello to all of you,
as you can see i am a new member in this forum.
Let's get to my point.
I want to upgrade my system to a nforce 3 250g rig with an 3200+ newcastle (socket 754) cpu.
I've made some reading for some hours now in this forum and what i understood is that the nforce 3 chipset does not fully support 2x512 modules in 200ddr mode (practically, if i am correct , you only get 166 because all of the 512 modules right now are double sided).
My question is the following,which board could cause the less compatibility issues with twinx512mb (2x256) corsair 3200XL ?
I have 4 choices:ASUS K8N-E Deluxe
GIGABYTE K8NSPro
Epox EP-8KDA3J
MSI 7030 K8N
Also , is this memory reccomended for these boards ? Maybe some other (LL or C2) corsair twinx modules are better ?
And this is the million dollar question , mean with the nforce 3 situation boards right now is it better to invest my money in tight timings(2-2-2-5) and less memory...or is it better to buy 1gb (2x512) in more loose timings ?
Please enlighten me,thank you in advance

Dojo

Edit : the gfx card will be my sapphire 9800pro@9800XT if that matters

PS: Sorry about my bad English

 

[dojoz]

Up , anyone ?

 

[RaymondY]

I can't speak for the mobos u have listed but I'm running a Chaintech VNF-250 mobo with my A64 2800+ using 2-Corsair 512mb XMS3200LL-PLT (2-2-2-5) without any problems.

I have the memory setup for 166mhz as I am o/c my 2800+ (1.8ghz) to 2.3ghz (HTT=255.3 with multiplier=9x) aircooled!!!

My memory timings are set for auto (thus getting me 2-2-2-5-10-16 according to cpu-z 1.23) with a freqency of 208.9mhz

 

[Concillian]

I don't think what you said is true. There are SOME boards, with SOME BIOS revisions that would force PC3200 to PC2700 under certain circumstances.

However I think most, if not all, of these boards have resolved whatever issues they had. I believe you should be able to use 2x512 modules of PC3200 at full PC3200 speed (and probably higher) with just about any nForce3 board.

Many games are noticeably better with a gig of RAM vs. 512. I'd definitely get a gig. As far as getting low latency, I've found it to bring only a slight performance gain myself. Maybe others have different opinions, but basically I could only tell the difference between 2-3-2 and 3-4-4 memory timings if I used benchmarking programs. Normal usage (even playing games) I couldn't tell the difference.

Low latency memory will, however, have more headroom to run higher FSB at slightly higher latencies, while CAS 3 memory likely has no more headroom. This can help with overclocking and getting a better memory divider, like in the case of RaymondY, you don't want to have to jump down to 2:3 in that case because your memory can't handle 210. If it couldn't handle his speed of ~210, he'd have to jump all the way down to 164 MHz, which probably WOULD be an appreciable and noticeable difference.

 

[WW2Planes1]

I have a K8N-E Deluxe and am currently running 2x512MB of Crucial PC3200 (Single Sided... *sigh*). According to the manual, the K8N-E Deluxe will run either 1 or 2 sticks of PC3200 at full speed.

Anandtech was able to get the K8N-E to run 3x512MB of PC3200 at 2-2-2-2-10 timings. Link

Also, I dunno, if you've looked at this, but you might want to take a look at the DFI LanParty UT Review Product (If you don't mind waiting on it). It's roughly the same price as the other boards you've got, and it overclocks like none other. (Of course, if you're not OCing, or not doing any heavy OCing, it might be a bit much).

Anyway, as long as you get a decent memory (eg Crucial, Corsair, OCZ, Mushkin, etc.) you should be fine.