Is CL4 memory too fast for Q6600?

Michaeljcox24

Michaeljcox24

Michaeljcox24

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West Bromwich
Whats the best memory to buy, to overclock Q6600 to 3.2Ghz on an ASUS P5N32E Sli+ board? At the moment got Valueram at CL6, causing TDR's all the time in games but windows enviroment (just desktop) is completely stable at 1333FSB, 3GHZ.

Read on some other forums that low latency timings makes the system even more unstable. Is this correct?
 
who said that? i use cl4 and its fine (4gb) , it gives you that option to overclock a little bit more etc...cl6 yuk! you really need at least 5 preferably 4.
 
Hi and welcome to the forums. :)

It is true and it is'nt true. If overclocking the ram then tighter timings will make it unstable once past it's rated speed but if you have ram rated at 4-4-4-12 @ 800mhz (pc2-6400) then it will be perfectly stable.

For example. You have a kit such as i mentioned above, pc2-6400 (800mhz) rated at 4-4-4-12 and requires 2.0v. This ram may go to 840mhz or a little more without changing anything. However, if you slacken the timings off to say 5-5-5-15 the ram may now go to 900mhz before becoming unstable.

The best ddr2 800mhz kits are usually rated at 4-4-4-12 the best ddr2 1066mhz kits are usually rated at 5-5-5-15. They will be perfectly stable at their rated timings as long as you give them the required voltage and do not take them past their rated speeds.
 
On the Asus website it says the maximum speed my board accepts is 800Mhz, embarrasingly, i knew nothing about cas latency until i started overclocking a Q6600 a couple of weeks back. Been doing a lot of reading, and there seems to be a lot of references to loosening up timings. Sorry, Im a noob when it comes to overclocking but the answers on here and general attitude of the lads is ten times better than any other forums ive posted on. Thanks.
 
It completely depends on the kit. PC2-6400 (800mhz) is enough to get your Q6600 to 3.6Ghz while staying at it's rated speed and timings. PC2-8500 (1066mhz) is overkill for a Q6600.

What is your current ram, ie, rated speed/timings/voltage?
 
pastymuncher said:
It completely depends on the kit. PC2-6400 (800mhz) is enough to get your Q6600 to 3.6Ghz while staying at it's rated speed and timings. PC2-8500 (1066mhz) is overkill for a Q6600.

What is your current ram, ie, rated speed/timings/voltage?
Click to expand...

Depends, can do 400x9 and get 800mhz on RAM or by going to 450x8 and changing the divider can get 1068mhz on RAM
 
current ram is 2 sticks of 800mhz DDR2 kingston valueram, 4gb timings are 6 6 6 18, and voltage according to hardware monitor when bios is on auto setting is 2.14v. i have overclocked up to 3ghz into stable windows enviroment, but get tdrs in assassins creed 2. tried uping fsb to 1467, but maching wouldnt boot. decreased timings to 7 7 7 21 and it booted but was really slow and cpu at idle was too hot.

im pretty sure tdr's were due to memory timings being too slow because when i decreased core clock on the gpu, tdr's went away. i only live in west brom so sat gonna drive up the M6 and pick up some cl4 memory from overclockers warehouse.
 
Michaeljcox24 said:
gonna drive up the M6 and pick up some cl4 memory from overclockers warehouse.
Click to expand...

Hello Michaeljcox24, welcome to OcUK forums! :)

Please read the forum rules and enjoy your stay . . .

Not sure what your chipset is like for running fast memory but if you can source some DDR2-1066 you may find it gives you more scope/headroom for clocking . . . . it will also be a better investment! :cool:
 
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Mr Paul said:
Is it best to run at 1066 5-5-5-15 or 800 4-4-4-12???
Click to expand...

  • DDR2-800 CAS 4 10.0 ns 6,400 MB/s
  • DDR2-1066 CAS5 9.4 ns 8,528 MB/s
Well running 533MHz CL5 gives lower latency and greater bandwidth :) . . . the difference may not move heaven & earth but it's a small performance increase and cobble enough of these tweaks together and you may find you actually notice it outside of benchmarks! :p

Personally I've not really noticed the benefits of having increased memory bandwidth but I've convinced myself I can feel the "Snappiness" that the reduced latency (ns) brings! :D
 
I run 4-4-4-12 800mhz on 2 x 2gb geil black dragon 5-5-5-15 sticks with zero problems.
The only thing i had to do to get them stable was hump the voltage up to 2.1v.
Imo your ram is the least of your worrys if your p5ne32 sli is anything like the p5n-e sli i used to run as it was shocking for OC'ing infact to the point of a complete waste of time.
2.8ghz was just about the max i could squeeze from it at nearly 1.5v!! :(
Anyways i fried the bios on it eventually got a nice giga p45 board and now the same chip (Q6600) runs at 3.2ghz at stock volts.
 
Ive got it to boot and runs quite nicely at 3ghz, and that was at stock voltage. wont know if the memory is the actually less of a problem though till i get something better than what is in the machine now. if it still tdr's, ill be replacing the board too as think one of the dimm slots is bent
 
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