Which Socket 939 board, that is not nForce4 chipset, can run 4 sticks of RAM @ DDR400?

[Bad Dude]

Hi everyone,
I want to go Winchester overclock with 4X512MB RAM, OCZ Gold Rev. 2, PC4000 sticks. I want to overclock but run the RAM at higher FSB. So far I only seen reports saying that, with 4 sticks, you can only run DDR333. I don't have the $$$$ to go nForce4 SLI yet.
Does any one knows nForce 3 board that can do this?
Thanks.

 

[adeathangel]

Hmm.. I have an A8V Deluxe with a 3200+ Winchester, and I can't get my 4 sticks of PC3500 to run at DDR400 no matter what I do. They're Kingmax value ram, I got the value ram because I was told the good stuff doesn't improve performance enough to make it worth-while. So I guess this is another report on that =P. So, I'm thinking.. is a viable option to sell off my ram and get two 512MB sticks of some PC4000 in order to achieve DDR400, not to mention more OCing? I am now very well led to believe this is why I can't OC as much as I thought I would be able to.

 

[imported_DaveA]

i dont think its the boards fault that it wont run at DDR 400. its the memory controller on the athlon 64.

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

Yep, and the next A64 revision is supposed to fix that according to some rumors.

 

[adeathangel]

So what do you all suggest, getting two sticks of 512MB ram that's PC4000 so I can comfortably OC my HTT to 250, let's say, and have the ram at 2:1 is a good idea, no?

 

[Peter]

I don't know how often this needs to be said: Reference frequency (what is falsely being referred to as FSB) is nothing to do with the RAM frequency, nor does the latter derive from the former. RAM frequency is divided down from CPU _core_ frequency, no matter what the reference frequency is - let alone at what multiplier from reference the HTT is running at. With a 2 GHz CPU and 200 MHz RAM, you'll be running your RAM on CPU/10. Whether those 2 GHz are made from 250x8 or 200x10 is entirely irrelevant for this.

And the 200 MHz 4-DIMM thing isn't even a limitation of the RAM controller. It's a limitation in how much electrical load (and hence signal degradation) is acceptable at 200 MHz - and that isn't much. Yes future AMD64 RAM controllers are rumoured to tweak this a bit toward having more headroom, but above all it's a design limitation of the DDR400 speed grade, which originally was not planned, introduced only for popular demand.

 

[adeathangel]

Alright, well, sorry for sounding so ignorant. I've just started getting into this, so sorry for frustrating you =\... But if the "Reference frequency" were 250MHz with a multiplier of 10x to make the CPU core frequency 2.5GHz, what does that mean for the ram frequency? Like I said, I've just started learning about all this, so the details aren't too clear for me. I read an explanation about understanding this better, but as you can see, I don't have it nailed down yet.

 

[Peter]

The RAM frequency is being divided down from CPU frequency. The divider is either determined automatically by BIOS, to stay at or below the DIMM's self-declared capabilities, or set by the user. On a 2500 MHz CPU with 200 MHz RAM attached, you'd obviously come out at CPU/13 to operate PC3200 DIMMs within spec.