Intel ram overclocking question?

[fire_storm]

Hopefully in the next couple of weeks Intel will release there new Q9xx's series of cpus and I can finally build my new rig. But recently I've been doing a lot of reading into the overclocking of core 2 quad cpus since I've never OC an Intel cpu before and been so far been able to get the logic behind it.

 

The only part I don't get is overclocking the memory on an Intel rig. I've red a butch of Intel OC guides but most of them only tell you how to OC the CPU and they don't tell you much about the ram besides what and how to use the dividers in the bios. What I don't get is when you OC your cpu do you OC your ram as well? Or do you put a divider on your ram and keep the ram at its stock speed and just OC the CPU.

 

Also does the number of sticks of ram in your motherboard effect how well you can OC. Like is it better to have 2x2GB sticks? Or does it not matter like could 4x2GB sticks OC the same as 2x2GB sticks?

 

I was looking at these 2 pairs of ram sticks and I'm not sure which one would be better for OC?

 

G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)

 

Or

 

I'd buy 2 sets of these so I could have 8 gigs mushkin 4GB(2 x 2GB) DDR2 1000

[ir_cow]

2 sticks is always better than 4 for overclocking, but anyways unless your in an 64bit OS only 3gb is going to show up. also mushkin is the better ram company i think but costly sometimes, in this case cheaper.

[Comp Dude2]

you can either use dividers to keep it stock or use dividers to oc it, its up to you. Although it wont make that much difference, 4Gb is a good investment, 8 is excessive, bluecow is right, 2 sticks is better and make sure you get a 64bit OS on it.

[kingdingeling]

Both of those sets you picked out are already high speed sets, so you don't have to worry as much about overclocking them. The G.Skill runs 533MHz native, the Mushkin 500MHz. Compared to the PC2-6400's 400MHz, that's a lot of headroom for OCing already.

[fire_storm]

you can either use dividers to keep it stock or use dividers to oc it, its up to you. Although it wont make that much difference, 4Gb is a good investment, 8 is excessive, bluecow is right, 2 sticks is better and make sure you get a 64bit OS on it.

 

Well I was planning on getting Home Premium 64-bit edition anyways because I already know about the whole 3~4 gig limit thing with 32-bit OS's so that really doesn't bother me.

 

I'm still deciding on weather to get 4 or 8 gigs of memory. I know 8 gigs is a little excessive and most apps don't need it for know but I'm going to college next year and I might not have the money in the next couple of years to keep throwing upgrades into my rig at will or to build a new rig and in 2-3 years. When 8 gigs is need I might be out of luck. With the way games and OS keep need more memory it might not be a bad idea to get 8gigs considering its not that too much more money then 4. Also with DDR3 out its only a matter of time before that takes off and gets cheaper and DDR2 gets harder to find on the market. But I'm still going to keep doing research on it if I find out that just having 8 gigs makes your computer unstable unless you play around with the voltages and timings I'm not going to take that risk.

 

I also red something on Tomshardware about the benfit of having 8 gigs but only half believe what there saying though.

[kingdingeling]

It's Toms....