RAm speed question from a thicko (me)

pete1336

pete1336

pete1336

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Hi all,
I come here seeking wisdom (no I'm not taking the ****) in relation to a RAM quesiton I have.
I've recently upgraded my old AMD dual core 4400 system for the OcUk bundle here http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-101-OK

The RAM that comes with this product is OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz SLI-Ready Edition Dual Channel DDR2. Now this is new and cutting edge RAM to me from a speed persepctive bearing in mind I've upgraded from 2gb of PC 3200 RAM. I know this old ram ran at 200mhz which in fact (correct me if I'm wrong) is actualy 400mhz as it worked on the falling and rising edge of something or other. I'm assuming that principle still applies to this new ddr2 ram that I now have?
I understand that this new ddr2 ram can reach 1066mhz but what I'm trying to understand is this...'In my overclocked system, what speed is it actually running at?' I've followed the OcUk guide and have the cpu running as per the below screenies.
I appreciate your help, thanks.

Pete




No swearing
 
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The speed of your ram is currently running at 460MHz which is in turn DDR2-920 as it gets doubled just like the ram you had before.

Seeing as the ram is DDR2-1066 it means you can up the FSB or ram divider until cpuz shows that you are running 533MHz (Makes 1066 when doubled)

The ram will probably be capable of more than 533MHz (1066 overall) but thats down to luck on how good the kit is.
 
Ah, ok, thanks, appreciate that. I'll give that a shot. Clearly my ram is capable of more and I'm keen to get best performance out of it.
 
I doubt there will be much difference in "real world" effects by upping the divider and running the ram higher as it doesn't seem to make much odds whether you run around 450Mhz or 550Mhz.

I am running some Ballistix 5300 which can do 570Mhz (1140) but after dropping the volts right down to the lowest possible and lowering the ram frequency to 470MHz (940) I can tell no difference at all.

The good thing though with being able to go higher on the ram is that if you decide to overclock the cpu some more you know that you can still go higher on the ram without having to drop down a divider.
 
If I decide to up the FSB then from what it is now, can I leave the ram divider as it is?
I'm just wondering if upping the FSB also automatically ups other components.
DRAM speed is currently 1:1.25
 
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Yes you still have quite a bit of headroom on that divider yet. The 1:1.25 divider is better known as the 4:5 divider which is what it shows in cpuz.

For example using the 4:5 divider that you are on now you can go up to around 426FSB whilst still running the memory at its stock speed.

4:5 Divider =

426FSB divided by 4 = 106.5

106.5 times by 5 = 532.5 (DDR2-1065)

By the way if you haven't already - its also worth manually selecting the divider in the bios to 1:1.25 as if you have it on auto it can start to get too clever when you up the FSB and change the divider for you.
 
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Thanks, the divider is set in the bios to 1:1.25 as that's what the ocuk clocking guide which came with the bundle advised. I didn't know the divider could be set outside of the bios.
 
1:1.25 is probably advised because it is a fairly conservative setting which also gives some headroom for a cpu overclock.

My advice would be to find the maximum CPU overclock you can get, and then start pushing up the memory.
 
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