PC-8500+ woth the extra £££ over PC2-6400?

DanTheMan

DanTheMan

DanTheMan

Soldato
Joined
11 Oct 2005
Posts
4,814
Location
Manchester, UK
Seeing as you can get 4gb of decent 6400 for around ~£40 and 8500+ is more than double that, is the difference worth it? Where would you notice the difference most?

Cheers.
 
I was thinking the same thing. About to build a new PC from scratch and I have my eye on the E8500 (probably looking to get 4Ghz out of it) on a P5Q board with a XFX Black Edition GTX260.

Trying to save every penny I can. I asked the same question b4. Only got one reply which basically said why spend that much on all that and scrimp on your RAM.

BUT I can't find a conclusive review regarding the difference in RAM @ 6400 and 8500 using the same setup that I want to buy.
 
totally depends on the rest of your system and what overclock you want

e8x00 with WC or phase then yes, especially if you want every mhz out of your cpu

any cpu at stock, no

q6600 OC'ed maybe, depending on what your trying to aim for
 
I paid £44 for 4Gb of PC8500 last week and running it at 1066Mhz it does seem a bit better than the 4Gb of PC6400 it replaced
 
I have a Q6600 @ 3Ghz with 8800GTS 512 SLI on a P5N-D with memory frequency unlocked in the BIOS so it stays at it's setting irrelevent of CPU

Using the Crysis benchmark...

Going from 800Mhz 4-4-4-12 to 1066 6-5-5-15 gained me 4fps @ 16x10 High DX10

Ocing the CPU to 3.6Ghz with the 800Mhz 4-4-4-12 ram gained me 3fps @ 16x10 High DX10

So if you're going to put all the effort into OCing your CPU to the max, may as well get some 1066 DDR. I only got the Kingston Cas6 back when it was £41 ... seems fine to me!

AD
 
Its worth buying simply because it wont hold you back when clocking your CPU, PC8500 is just about as cheap as PC6400 anyway these days.

£32.89 for 2gb here
 
I'm in a similar situation.

I will be buying new components within the next two weeks. I had chosen the G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-8000C5 RAM that OcUK had to go with the E8500 CPU and Asus P5Q motherboard but now OcUK are out of stock of the G-Skill with No-ETA... :(

It looks like I'll need to pay another £20 or so to go for the 8500 RAM instead.

Is it true that OCZ RAM does not work well with Asus motherboards, or is that just a rumour?
 
decto said:
I have a Q6600 @ 3Ghz with 8800GTS 512 SLI on a P5N-D with memory frequency unlocked in the BIOS so it stays at it's setting irrelevent of CPU

Using the Crysis benchmark...

Going from 800Mhz 4-4-4-12 to 1066 6-5-5-15 gained me 4fps @ 16x10 High DX10

Ocing the CPU to 3.6Ghz with the 800Mhz 4-4-4-12 ram gained me 3fps @ 16x10 High DX10

So if you're going to put all the effort into OCing your CPU to the max, may as well get some 1066 DDR. I only got the Kingston Cas6 back when it was £41 ... seems fine to me!

AD
Click to expand...

Same stuff ive got, good stuff
 
I would say 8500 is absolutely not worth it.

On the other hand, let's face it, no high-end hardware is value for money.

With people saying "if you want to push your CPU, you need 8500+ RAM", I can only see this being an argument for those with 45nm CPUs with low (<9x) multipliers. As soon as you hit a 10x multi, you're pretty much sorted. Just run the RAM 1:1 if you have 6400. Running 8500+ isn't going to show much difference as long as you run a low tRD on both systems.

Lowering the tRD gives the most benefit to memory latency and bandwidth and comes 'free' with your motherboard (assuming it has the ability to change it - most overclocking boards do).

e.g. On Asus P5Q, I believe it's called "AI Transaction Booster". Lower = better.
 
Zildjian said:
Is it true that OCZ RAM does not work well with Asus motherboards, or is that just a rumour?
Click to expand...

I bloody well hope not as i have just bought some for my P5K WiFi-AP

Please someone must have this setup??

Just replacing me Ballistix for the same price.

Is it going to cause me problems???
 
Core 2 runs a gazillion (approx) times better when you have uber fast memory, I been clocking Core 2 since December 2006 and I only recently discovered I've been making a mistake these past few years! :o

A regular 266MHz-FSB CPU can make full use of 533MHz Ram (1066DDR2) let alone a CPU that runs on a higher FSB! :eek:

balancelu7.jpg

Effective FSB= 1064 . . . Effective Memory Speed=1066 . . . Bingo!

In the event you can't get your real memory MHz double that of the real FSB-MHz then you have the Northbridge straps/tRD settings to dabble with.

PC2-6400 is *ok* these days but PC2-8500 and beyond is where its at, by all means by PC2-6400 but only if its known to clock like crazy! :cool:
 
Im looking at an E8600 so 4ghz with PC6400 at 1:1 and for the same money i can get 8gb of 6400 as opposed to 4gb of 8500.
Any thoughts.
 
If you already have PC2-6400, then I would see if you can get your system FSB up to 400MHz and maybe a little more using PC2-6400 before buying anything above this frequency. If you can't then the buying PC2-8500 would be a waste of money imo.
 
Admiral Huddy said:
If you already have PC2-6400, then I would see if you can get your system FSB up to 400MHz and maybe a little more using PC2-6400 before buying anything above this frequency. If you can't then the buying PC2-8500 would be a waste of money imo.
Click to expand...

Good Point Essex Boy :) Just like me lol
 
Admiral Huddy said:
If you already have PC2-6400, then I would see if you can get your system FSB up to 400MHz and maybe a little more using PC2-6400 before buying anything above this frequency. If you can't then the buying PC2-8500 would be a waste of money imo.
Click to expand...

None of your links work dude??
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom