DDR - 1T or 2T

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Hi,

I've got 4 x 512MB of Geil ram currently running at 480MHz (240MHz) with timings of 2.5-3-3-5 @ 2T (MemTest86 stable)

The ram is not stable at those settings at 1T (tried it but instantly failed MemTest86)

Is it worth me starting my overclock from scratch with 1T and seeing what timings & speed I can stably get, or will the performance difference be negligable?

I'm guessing that my choices are something like the following:

1) 480MHz 2.5-3-3-5 (2T)
or
2) ~400MHz 2-3-3-5 (1T)

Thanks,

Banjo ;_;
 
Thanks Firegod & ASH1982,

Will try the various settings and post results of the bandwidth I'm getting :)

Banjo ;_;
 
Hey str,

Actually, (surprisingly) I've got two pairs of bog standard Geil PC3200.
One rated at 2-3-3-6 and the other at 2-4-4-8.
I know I can get the ram to 500MHz but I need to relax the latencies a bit more so I don't know whether I'll get a performance boost, I'm going to check out the bandwidth figures on Memtest86 later on :)

I've got no experience with Geil DDR550 Ultra-X, but sometimes with high-end ram, to get that speed you need to increase the voltage to it, and if you're lucky then the manufacturer will allow for this without voiding the warranty.

(Think about Corsair Dominator DDR2 RAM running at 1,111MHz, it needs to be over-volted to be stable but overvolting it (to an extent) doesn't void the warranty)

Banjo ;_;
 
Hi everyone, thanks for the fast replies :)

Got some results for you (read-outs from MemTest86)

Speed: -- Latencies: Cmd Rate: Bandwidth:
480MHz - 2.5-3-3-5 - 2T ----- 2344MB/s
515MHz -- 3-3-3-5 -- 2T ----- 2577MB/s

396MHz - 2.5-3-3-5 - 1T ----- 2715MB/s
410MHz -- 2-3-3-5 -- 1T ----- 2834MB/s
427MHz -- 2-3-3-5 -- 1T ----- 2925MB/s
445MHz - 2.5-3-3-5 - 1T ----- 2993MB/s
454MHz -- 3-3-3-5 -- 1T ----- 3000MB/s

Thanks again for all the info, basically it looks promising as raw data, but bear in mind that those latencies are too tight for the ram to function 100% stably in 1T.

I've done those tests to show what sort of numbers I can expect if I do spend the time fine-tuning the (many) ram timings on my LANParty CFX3200-DR.

To be honest str, those are some very nice timings for DDR @ 500MHz, I don't really think you're missing out on much by not being able to hit 550MHz effective, although it's worth querying Geil as to why the ram won't/can't run at it's rated speed.

Thanks YellowBeard, to be honest I'm happier with my RAM at 515MHz and 2T because it sounds so much more impressive to brag about :D
Also, I'm going to push my CPU further (maybe to ~2.9GHz) if the chip can cope with that at ~1.5V for when I save up enough money to buy a high end GPU such as the HD 2900XT. (I know a current high end GPU will run fine on a 2.6GHz A64 but for games like Supreme Commander which is very CPU intensive, etc.)
 
str said:
The thing is it's rated to do 2.5-3-3-5 at DDR500 but errors are occuring. The system is 24 hours Orthos stable at DDR500 2.5-4-4-7 but the last couple of days it's blue screened 3 times and I suspect it's the memory causing the problem. I also recently tested at DDR400 2-2-2-5-2T and with 4 modules it was failing Orthos.

Have you tried using MemTest86, even if the RAM isn't stable, it'll still give you a read-out of how much bandwidth the current set-up is giving, you should do what I did and compare your results at 400MHz, 500MHz and 550MHz with the various latencies. Just to see what you're missing out on.
Glad to hear Geil are getting in touch with you :)

Also, thanks for that bit of knowledge about DFI's boards, I wasn't sure whether It was possible to run 4 sticks at 1T. Actually, in the manual it says when 4 sticks are inserted it defaults to 333MHz, but I'd not realised why.
Might see if I can get it running stable at ~400Mz with 1T, just so that I can say that I did it :p

Banjo ;_;
 
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