One of those "which one to buy?" threads

[Rigsta]

Just for a change, bet you never see threads like this here

Current hardware:

• Some Akasa >500W PSU.
• DFI LANPARTY UT RDX200 CF-DR
• AMD x64 3700+ w/ Gigabyte "Rocket" 3D cooler.
• 2x 512MB Corsair PC3200s and 2x 256MB Corsair PC3200s.
• ATI Radeon x1800XT 512MB (stock hoover, err I mean cooler).
• Sound Blaster Audigy 2.... rather old.
• 10K RPM 80GB SATA HDD.
• Akasa black aluminium case w/ 2 120mm fans hooked up to a basic fan controller.

It's been suggested that I lose a couple of RAM sticks to enable 1T. I don't particularly understand that, but I get the impression it's faster since everyone likes it. So I'm looking for a 2GB pair of fast memory. Browsing the catalogue OCZ platinum section, I see....

OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC3200 Dual Channel Platinum Series (400MHz)
@ 2-3-2-5

OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC4000 Dual Channel Platinum Series (500MHz)
@ 3-3-2-8


So... 100MHz clock speed difference vs. tighter out-of-the-box timings. Which of these would be preferable?

I'm a novice when it comes to how RAM works, though I understand the basic principle of low timings = faster. I need to take a computer science course or something...

EDIT: I'm far from making my final choice but I'm leaning towards better stock speed rather than overclock potential at this time since I don't properly understand how the CPU/RAM interaction works.

 

[Ladforce]

hi mate, have a look in this thread where i have tried to explain a bit about dividers and stuff http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17562620 . i would personally go with the tight timings + slower fsb as you can always use a divider to keep the mem running at its rated speed. the cas3 stuff will do you well though, just be sure you want to overclock to at least 250 fsb though or it will go to waste if you dont have a 233 or 250 divider otherwise it will run slower than its rated to + have slower timings.

 

[Rigsta]

Thanks, that answered my question.

 

[Artheas]

hi mate, have a look in this thread where i have tried to explain a bit about dividers and stuff http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17562620 . i would personally go with the tight timings + slower fsb as you can always use a divider to keep the mem running at its rated speed. the cas3 stuff will do you well though, just be sure you want to overclock to at least 250 fsb though or it will go to waste if you dont have a 233 or 250 divider otherwise it will run slower than its rated to + have slower timings.

say you do have a 250 divider, wouldnt it be pointless if the cpu runs with a fsb of 200mhz and the ram with 250mhz?

 

[Ladforce]

dunno about real world performance, in sisoft sandra mem bandwidth benchmark it got me about 300mb/sec more. whether or not in real world applications it would make any difference at all is another matter cos some of the results sandra gives are a bit dubious.