What would be the best overclocking 512MB dimms for intel platform?

[Philippine Mango]

I believe I've come to the conclusion with ofcourse none of anandtech's help that it'd be better for me to run my system with 4 512MB modules than 2 1GB modules. I've posted on numerous forums on what I should do about getting 2 1GB modules or 4 512MB modules and I was told 2 1GB modules would be less stressful and run faster. The problem with this is that these people only had AMD 64 in mind with it's inability to handle more than 2 dimms at a time, otherwise resulting in a performance decrease. I asked what was faster 2 dimms or 4 dimms on an intel 875p/865 base board and they unanimously said that 2 dimms was faster.

What frustrated me the very most, again this claim isn't entirely verified (and I'll explain later as to why) is that anandtech did a review back in '03 (before I joined) showing that those systems benefit from having all 4 dimms populated and that it was only in certain circumstances was there a performance decrease, and was minimal at that. Also it showed the overclocking performance APPEARED to have been minimally effected, hard to know though since they weren't able to clock very high in the first place. Having read that, I noticed they only tested with 256MB dimms and not 512MB dimms, so at this time I still don't know what 2 512MB dimms vs 4 512MB dimms is like.

With that in mind, what would be the best DDR 512MB modules for overclocking I can get? I've done plenty of research and have read numerous articles but it would be nice if some of the posts supported what I was thinking..

 

[aka1nas]

While higher capacity sticks tend to put more stress on the memory bus, 4 sticks will almost always be worse. Whether that will noticeably impact your OC may vary.

With that said, which board in particular are you looking at?

 

[Shimmishim]

i won't go into the 4 vs 2 stick argument since i'm not sure...
however, with 4 sticks (if i remember correctly) you will be forced to use 2T <- I could be wrong about this.

the question is... are you looking for max fsb or tightest timings?

for max fsb, try to find mem that uses TCCD or TCC5
for tightest timings, try to find mem that uses BH-5/6, or CH-5/6. However for these modules, you will need 3.2+ volts to get them to run 250mhz or higher.

 

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
While higher capacity sticks tend to put more stress on the memory bus, 4 sticks will almost always be worse. Whether that will noticeably impact your OC may vary.

With that said, which board in particular are you looking at?

My board is an IC7-G

Originally posted by: Shimmishim
i won't go into the 4 vs 2 stick argument since i'm not sure...
however, with 4 sticks (if i remember correctly) you will be forced to use 2T <- I could be wrong about this.

This is exactly what my problem was when I discussed this since people seem to have a memory of a goldfish. That whole T2 thing with 4 dimms was an AMD64 issue ONLY, intel never had this problem due to the dedicated chipset.


If you want the down low on the whole 4 dimm vs 2 dimm, check out this article.

http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=1839

 

[Philippine Mango]

bump for night crew

 

[Yellowbeard]

In a nutshell, I have done it both ways on 875 chipset MOBOs (ABIT IC-7 MAX3, ASUS P4C800E-Deluxe) , 2 x 1gb and 4 x 512mb. If you have the option, get 2 x 1gb. There is more than meets the eye to that Anandtech article. Among other things, they were comparing SS vs DS DIMMs. Current FAST 1gb DIMMs will allow a MUCH better OC than any 4 x 512 setup.

However, if you decide to go 4 x 512mb, any decent modules based on the Samsung TCCD ICs or the legendary Winbond BH5 ICs are your best bet.