When do I need to change RAM timings

MrT1981

MrT1981

MrT1981

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Joined
26 Jun 2007
Posts
20
Hi folks,

I've done basic overclocking for some time now but the part that confuses me most is RAM timings, and more specifically *when* (ie under what cicumstances) they should be altered.

My last processor was an Athlon XP 4000+ San Diego on an A8N-E with 2x1GB Crucial DDR400 and I had that clocked to 2.7GHz purely by altering the FSB to 225. I never realised at the time that that meant my HT bus was running way over 1000 but I never suffered any ill effects and it was a rock solid overclock.

I just bought an X2 4200 Toledo so while I was waiting for it to arrive I started playing around with 4000+ to try out different things as it didn't matter if I messed it up. The only time I ran into problems was when I changed the RAM divider so I was wondering if you need to alter timings if you change the divider or not?

I now have the X2 4200 in and its overclocked to 2.4GHz, again just altering the FSB, so I have FSB at 219, CPU multi 11, LDT multi 5 and RAM 1:1. I was thinking about going up to 2.5GHz by lowering the CPU multi to 10 and using an FSB of 250, LDT 4x and RAM at DDR333, is this likely to be ok and would I need to mess about with timings?

Hope that all makes sense, lol :confused:

MrT
 
Changing the divider should not effect your timings, unless it pushes the memory beyond stock. My understanding is that you should be running at 1:1 for best perfomance.

You don't say what your current memory is and it's ratings

I wouldn't mess about with the timings for the fun of it, unless you are trying to squeeze every last drop of perfomance out of your pc

At a minimum, download CPU-Z and see what your actual timings are on the memory tab and compare them to what's on the spd tab (what your memory is rated at), and correct if necessary. I've never bothered too much with timings 'cos I've always thought it was way too much hassle for little payback - but that's just me - since this is overclockers I'm sure plenty of folks will disagree :D
 
Thanks for the reply :)

The RAM and mobo are the same as before, I just got a new CPU so I know in theory the RAM should be able to go to 225 without problems but to get the CPU up to 2.5 I would need an FSB of 228 and I seem to recall when I was originally overclocking I started getting memory errors at 227.

From what I understand, setting the FSB at 250 with the CPU multi at 10 and LDT at 4 will give me 2.5GHz and HT bus speed of 1000 and if I set the RAM speed to DDR333 in the BIOS it will work out to be 208?

EDIT: Forgot to mention the timings in CPU-Z match up to what's shown in the SPD tab
 
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Your mem divider should always reflect your CPU overclock. Put it low to 333 or 200 and see how far you can overclock your cpu. Once you find you max cpu overclock then simply increase the divider again to the max stable speed.

Avoid memory timings they offer very little performance increase.
 
Cheers for the help guys, I'm now at 2.6GHz:

Core Speed 2608.3 MHz
Multiplier: x10
Bus Speed: 260.8
HT Link: 1043.3 MHz
VCore: 1.4V
RAM: 217.4 MHz

It idles at around 44C and under medium to heavy load it's around 52-55C, but it's running a little hotter than I'd like under full load (60C), I'm looking into a better cooler but in the meantime would trying to drop the VCore help?

The other thing I was thinking of doing was to get rid of a couple of IDE HD's. I have a dual boot of Vista/XP and I've not had the need to boot into XP for about 2 months. XP is on 1 IDE HD with files/games/apps on a 2nd IDE HD and Vista is on a 320GB SATA drive so I figure cutting out 2 HD's and getting rid of the associated cables should help the ambient temp as well as air flow right?
 
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Just a question about the ratio. Why would i want to run the RAM at 1:1? Say my FSB is at 266 and i run it at 1:1, then my RAM is running at 533? Why couldn't i use the other ratios to get it closer to 800MHz?
 
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