WHICH memory speed?

[granorpio]

Looking towards some new memory soon as I will be be donating mine to my daughters machine.
I have already decided on Corsair and bought the Dominator Airflow Fan already just to prove too myself that that is the one for me.

The question is which one will give me the best all-round performance and gain as I'm yet still to decide how I'm going to run machine as the build is still ongoing.
Thoughts:
1. run the Q6600 at stock
2. pump up the Q6600 to 3.0GHz (no need to go wild)
3. give the Q6600 to my daughter and get a Q9450 and run at stock
4. get a Q9450 and slightly OC

Was going to get a 3870x2 but may now wait for the 4000 series in June/July.

Memory choices: I'll be getting 4GB in total:

1. PC2-6400 XMS2 (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=585722)

2. PC2-8500 Dominator (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=462617)

3. Quad PC2-8500 Dominator (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=632575)

TIA

[granorpio]

OK, so lets assume I stick at stock speeds with either Q6600 or the Q9450 would I benefit from PC-8500 or would I be wasting the extra £5 - $10 that it would cost over the PC-6400 :confused: :D

I am also hearing that I would be better off by getting 1x (2x2GB) Dual Channel rather than 2x (2x1GB) Dual Channel. Is this true, what's the benefit :confused:

[Mike Clements]

If you get a CPU that can hit a FSB faster than 400mhz, then you may want to get the PC8500 speed grade as it guarantees more OCing headroom over PC6400. Also, a 2 x 2gb of PC8500 kit is much more likely to allow a good OC than a 4 x 1gb 8500 kit on most MOBOs. 2 modules are 1/2 the electrical load on the memory controller.

[rennyf77]

If you get a CPU that can hit a FSB faster than 400mhz, then you may want to get the PC8500 speed grade as it guarantees more OCing headroom over PC6400. Also, a 2 x 2gb of PC8500 kit is much more likely to allow a good OC than a 4 x 1gb 8500 kit on most MOBOs. 2 modules are 1/2 the electrical load on the memory controller.

are 4gbx2 modules a viable overclocking option, or is the manufacruring process for 4gb ic's too immature?

[Mike Clements]

are 4gbx2 modules a viable overclocking option, or is the manufacruring process for 4gb ic's too immature?

You can OC 4 modules on some MOBOs but it is inconsistent. But, the ICs are not the issue. It's the bios and the memory controller on the MOBO.

[Thrust]

and if you get a m/b that allows for independant clocks of ram and cpu the skies the limit. i.e. my 680i allows me to run my memory up to 1200mhz so I could use PC2 1200 while my FSB is 1756 (439*9=3951)