Is CAS-2 important for P4 CPUs ?

[Toff]

Please correct me here (I'm sure to make mistakes!)

I have an IC7-MAX3 with a P4 3.0HT (prescot I think) I have decent air & watercooling in place, so I'm finally ready to increase my overclocking!

Obviously, I've locked the PCI and AGP bus and I want to leave the CPU / RAM ratio at 1:1 I hope to raise my FSB to about 250 / 260 ish (depending on how stable it remains) but I need some quality memory to do this (just using bog standard crucial stuff at the moment).

I heard that AMD CPUs are highly dependant on low latency RAM to provide a very quick system. Apparently it's not so critical on a P4?

Should I forget about CAS 2 memory and just go for some DDR4200 (533MHz) - so at least I know the memory will cope with the higher FSB?

Please let me know if I've got the wrong end of the stick here!

Thanks in advance - Toff.

 

[Toff]

Thanks for the help guys, much appreciated.

Am I right in saying that it's worth going for well-discussed memory (such as OCZ) everybody seems to be posting their timings for this brand - which could come in handy (as I've never overclocked my mem before!)

Sorry about the sig.. will reduce the size.

- Toff.

 

[Toff]

Thanks guys.

In the end I went for a bargain in the "This Week Only" section...

OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC4000 Dual Channel Gold GX XTC Series EL-DDR CAS3

The low-latency PC4000 / PC4200 stuff seems quite a bit more expensive and very few people seem to have it in stock.

Is it possible to tighten-up the timings slightly on the above OCZ (3-4-3-8) and if so, has anybody written a how-to?

Kind regards - Toff.

 

[Toff]

No real need. P4's dont really respond to timings as much as FSB. Crank up the FSB and you more than make up for the loose timings. Of course, you want as tight a timings as possible but it is not required on a P4. The tightest they will go is about 2.5-3-3-8 1T @ 200mhz but this is based on the average those chips achieve. Good choice for your platform though .

That's reassuring thanks.

The mem will be running at it's native frequency (I'll probably leave the FSB at 250) but If I tighten the timings, will it put extra stress / shorten the life of the memory?

Thanks - Toff.

 

[Toff]

Nope, changing timings has no effect on the lifespan - only voltage and heat can do that.

And because I'm planing to run the mem at it's native frequency.. I won't need to raise the voltage, right?

Thanks - Al.