Which Ram for LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D

cymatty · 29 Apr 2006 at 03:02

Hi DFI reccomedns these

http://eu.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_pro...E=MB&CATEGORY_TYPE=LP&SITE=US&PRODUCT_ID=3471

However cant find/ afford some of them so i am looking at the following.

G.Skill 1GB DDR ZX PC3200 (2x512MB) CAS2 Dual Channel Kit (F1-3200PHU2-1GBZX) (MY-002-GS) £70.44

Corsair 1GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x512MB) CAS2 (MY-030-CS) £72.79

GeIL ONE 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 BH5 CAS1.5 (GOW1GB3200DC) (MY-055-GL) £82.25

Or at a push

Corsair 1GB DDR XMS3200XL Pro TwinX (2x512MB) CAS2 (MY-050-CS) £94.00

Will be used with a 3200 venice and will be overclocked.
Cheers

w3bbo · 29 Apr 2006 at 07:51

If you are going to overclock I would suggest getting some PC4000 memory as this will enable you to clock higher without putting the memory on a divider.

Some people have problems on DFI boards with certain bios's with Corsair ( I did). I now use Gskill HZ and have found it to be great both for overclocking and compatibility.

I would go for OCZ or Gskill with the DFI tbh.

cymatty · 29 Apr 2006 at 11:16

w3bbo said:
I would go for OCZ or Gskill with the DFI tbh.

OCZ 512MB PC3700 Platinum Edition EB-DDR CAS3?

agw_01 · 29 Apr 2006 at 11:18

Come on Si. If you're going to do something, do it properly... CAS3 :confused:

cymatty · 29 Apr 2006 at 11:20

agw_01 said:
Come on Si. If you're going to do something, do it properly... CAS3

Well i did post some cas 1.5 that would work with the dfi but it is only PC3200.

Minstadave · 29 Apr 2006 at 11:34

Is this going to be a gaming rig? If so I'd ditch all the 1 gigabyte kits in favour of a cheap 2x1Gig set, use a memory divider and clock away, you'll get much better results.

cymatty · 29 Apr 2006 at 11:36

Minstadave said:
Is this going to be a gaming rig? If so I'd ditch all the 1 gigabyte kits in favour of a cheap 2x1Gig set, use a memory divider and clock away, you'll get much better results.

Not mainly a gaming rig as for the moment it will only have a cheap pci-e graphics card in so not sure if i need 2 gig of memory.

Minstadave · 29 Apr 2006 at 11:37

cymatty said:
Not mainly a gaming rig as for the moment it will only have a cheap pci-e graphics card in so not sure if i need 2 gig of memory.

What are you going to be doing with the system? The A64 platform isn't bottlenecked by memory bandwidth so RAM isn't hugely important.

cymatty · 29 Apr 2006 at 11:39

Minstadave said:
What are you going to be doing with the system? The A64 platform isn't bottlenecked by memory bandwidth so RAM isn't hugely important.

Just going to be used mainly for photo editing, light gaming and just internet etc.

Minstadave · 29 Apr 2006 at 11:42

cymatty said:
Just going to be used mainly for photo editing, light gaming and just internet etc.

In that case I'd be tempted to go for Geil Value or something cheap, 2x512mb kits aren't going to hold their value much as people are needing more memory. Geil Value runs tighter timings than rated 2.5-3-3-7 is fine with these modules, and they'll clock to 225-235 too.

cymatty · 29 Apr 2006 at 11:45

Minstadave said:
In that case I'd be tempted to go for Geil Value or something cheap, 2x512mb kits aren't going to hold their value much as people are needing more memory. Geil Value runs tighter timings than rated 2.5-3-3-7 is fine with these modules, and they'll clock to 225-235 too.

Surely it would be possible to buy another 2x512mb later on and have 4gb of memory? Or is this not advisable.

Minstadave · 29 Apr 2006 at 11:54

cymatty said:
Surely it would be possible to buy another 2x512mb later on and have 4gb of memory? Or is this not advisable.

Its not an ideal solution as with 4x512mb you have to run at a 2T command rate due to limitations of the A64 memory controller, with 2x1gig modules you can run at 1T. The performance hit of running at 2T isn't massive but it is there.

trojan698 · 29 Apr 2006 at 13:08

The Geil One bh5 is amazing ram, its rated at both PC3200 @ cas 1.5 and PC4000 @ 2-2-2-5. You'll need active cooling but that isn't a huge issue.

Minstadave · 29 Apr 2006 at 13:21

trojan698 said:
The Geil One bh5 is amazing ram, its rated at both PC3200 @ cas 1.5 and PC4000 @ 2-2-2-5. You'll need active cooling but that isn't a huge issue.

For a day to day rig though running the DFI with the Vdimm jumper at the 3.2V+ setting is a pain, everything gets so hot.

trojan698 · 29 Apr 2006 at 13:39

I ran mine for a few months and didn't notice any huge temp increase over the ballisitx I was previously using. The only thing that was hotter was the ram and with active cooling over the module and decent air flow throughout the case there shouldnt be a problem. You'll also need a good psu naturally.

Minstadave · 29 Apr 2006 at 13:40

trojan698 said:
I ran mine for a few months and didn't notice any huge temp increase over the ballisitx I was previously using. The only thing that was hotter was the ram and with active cooling over the module and decent air flow throughout the case there shouldnt be a problem. You'll also need a good psu naturally.

Its the area around the topright MOFSET that gets stupidly hot, you have to be really careful about getting good airflow over that area, especially if you're using voltages around 3.2-3.4V, as the big stepdown from 5V means lots of heat is produced.

cymatty · 29 Apr 2006 at 15:28

trojan698 said:
The Geil One bh5 is amazing ram, its rated at both PC3200 @ cas 1.5 and PC4000 @ 2-2-2-5. You'll need active cooling but that isn't a huge issue.

So if i got the Geil one are you saying i would need fans near the ram for added cooling to keep the sticks cool?

ajgoodfellow · 29 Apr 2006 at 15:36

cymatty said:
So if i got the Geil one are you saying i would need fans near the ram for added cooling to keep the sticks cool?

Yep

To maintain these speeds the BH5 memory in the Geil One requires huge voltages (3.4V). This makes the sticks run rather hot so they must be actively cooled

If you don't want to actively cool the sticks get the Geil One TCCD stuff - this doesn't require the huge voltages and active cooling

Don't get any Corsair memory though as this is notorious for causing problems on DFI motherboards

cymatty · 29 Apr 2006 at 15:42

ajgoodfellow said:
Yep

To maintain these speeds the BH5 memory in the Geil One requires huge voltages (3.4V). This makes the sticks run rather hot so they must be actively cooled

If you don't want to actively cool the sticks get the Geil One TCCD stuff - this doesn't require the huge voltages and active cooling

Don't get any Corsair memory though as this is notorious for causing problems on DFI motherboards

Cheers for the help, would i just be able to clock the sticks from pc3200 speeds rather than upping the voltage to 3.4v to get pc4000. :confused:

ajgoodfellow · 29 Apr 2006 at 15:44

You can just keep clocking the sticks but they'll need the extra voltage to stabilise at the higher clock speeds. PC4000 is only 250MHz though so you shouldn't need such high voltages

I'd personally get the TCCD Geil One though