What is more important??

[Mr. Jules]

I am getting my NF3 250gb and 3000 venice Thursday and am doing some research into getting some different memory. I have read a lot of opinions but the only ones I really trust are the ones I read here, so here's what I need to know.

 

On a setup like mine (754) what is more important, timings or speed. Now I know this a big catfight in some forums and that's not what I am looking for at all. I just want to know I am better off (in theory) to get a 1GB stick of DDR400 3-3-3-8 or a 1GB stick of DDR500 3-4-4-8. I am not asking for sake of benchmarks but looking for real world gaming performance. Would I see any real difference running a 1:1 @ 250FSB vs. a divider @ say 215FSB.

 

I think you get the drift of what I am shooting for so if there is any simple way to answer this question I would love to hear what the brains around here could tell me. Thanks so much in advance, you guys are the best resource I have. Cheers.

[Godspeed27]

i'm sure you will want 2 sticks of 512, not one stick of 1gb, that way you can run 128bit, not 64bit.....wish i would have known that

[Godspeed27]

wait, i think that is only the 939, sorry

[AbsoLoot]

I say it goes like this :

 

for gaming #1 = Quantity , #2 = Speed, #3 = Timings

 

for benching #1 = Speed, #2 Timings, #3 = Quantity.

 

Timings are only there to put the icing on the cake IMHO, the majority of bandwidth comes from sheer clocks, and the majority of performance comes from RAM being available when an application or device needs it.

[learners permit]

Man figuring that out for yourself is half the fun of tweakin. When you get your first look at that bios your gonna wonder what the hell all those settings do. When that happens look here for answers. http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20823

[Branjo]

If you hold off on buying more memory until you can get 2x1Gb sticks then you would really feel a performance boost. For now I would see how your 2 x 512's run first, they might buy you some time to build the funds up. Thats what is next on my upgrade list 2x1Gb

[Mr. Jules]

Yeah, i am just trying to figure out what would be best to buy now because in June when AM2 & DDR2 come out then I would assume there will be many getting rid of some great DDR. :drool: So I'll wait till then to get anything but but I was just curious what you guys thought.

 

So say with my upgrade in a few months I wanted to get 1GB, what are you recommendations? 2x512mb or 1GB stick? Then OCZ, Corsair, Crucial, TCCD, BH5. What has the highest success rate with this setup. Thanks for any help ahead of time!

 

Oops, just realized I should take a look at learners permit's links, that answers a few of these questions already. Sorry for being and idiot. Anyways if you still have some good suggestions I would love to hear em.

[wevsspot]

CPU clocking is king when it comes to performance in the real world. Pick your memory based on it's ability to clock with your processor. The worst thing in the world is to have a processor that will overclock 30% or more over it's stock timing and have memory hold you back. It's been a while since I've built a Venice based rig, but I know the first two I used back when the Venice 3000 was an infant, easily hit 2.7ghz without even breaking a sweat. But I had to use a RAM divider because my RAM couldn't scale with my processor.

 

Your RAM selection in this case will be very important since the Venice 3000 has a multiplier of 9 that is locked upward. Meaning that you can only user lower numbered dividers. To hit 2.7ghz with your new Venice you'll have to use a FSB of 300, and you will still end up having to use a memory divider.

 

You can use the handy little tool found here for understanding your cpu and memory clockings a little better.

 

http://math.gogar.com/athlon64.cgi?showtable=1

 

I overclock the snot out of stuff, so I firmly believe that bandwidth will always beat tight timings. So I look for memory that will clock like crazy, and still have fairly decent timings.

 

My memory preference is always OCZ first. And personally I'd go for the DDR500 over the tight timings.

[Spyvie]

Your RAM selection in this case will be very important since the Venice 3000 has a multiplier of 9 that is locked upward. Meaning that you can only user lower numbered dividers. To hit 2.7ghz with your new Venice you'll have to use a FSB of 300, and you will still end up having to use a memory divider.

 

The Venice 3000+ has a multiplier of 10X, needing 270 HTT to hit 2.7

 

*

[smolt]

EVERYONE SPENDS WAY TO MUSH THOUGH INTO MEMORY. MAx out your cpu and MAKE your memory work there what ever divider you have to use at the lowest timmings you can and your done end of story and get gamming or what ever you do with your PC

[wevsspot]

The Venice 3000+ has a multiplier of 10X, needing 270 HTT to hit 2.7*

 

Spyvie, you are right, I entirely forgot he is using the socket 754 Venice 3000 which is 2.0ghz (200X10).

 

I had tunnel vision and was thinking about the socket 939 Venice 3000 which is 1.8ghz (200X9).

 

All other comments and opinions are applicable though.

[wevsspot]

EVERYONE SPENDS WAY TO MUSH THOUGH INTO MEMORY. MAx out your cpu and MAKE your memory work there what ever divider you have to use at the lowest timmings you can and your done end of story and get gamming or what ever you do with your PC

 

Exactly!