Which RAM is better?

[3-Phase]

I can't decide which RAM to get. Here are some that I was considering.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-220-033&depa=0

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-523&depa=0

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-890&depa=0

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-144-332&depa=0

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-355&depa=0

If you know of any other RAM in the <= $200-250 price range that you think is better, please link me.

[scottatwittenberg]

what are you putting it into? and what are your goals.. if you have an A-64 a whole bunch of people are going to tell you to get some can 2.5 value ram becasue it only makes a 3% difference..

if you have intel it will be different.. a-xp will be different..

so what are the specs of your computer?

[3-Phase]

I plan on getting the following:

A64 3800+ Venice
MSI "K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI"
eVGA nVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT

It will be for gamming. I don't really plan on overclocking right away.

[Flak Monkey]

Get the Corsair or OCZ, both reputible brands and should overclock well.

[(cf)Eclipse]

best stuff for the money
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-546&depa=1

when you get to it, it'll oc pretty well, and at tight timings ;)
(i have two sticks, both can hit the limit of my memory controller of 250mhz at 2.5-2-2-10)

[burningrave101]

best stuff for the money
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-546&depa=1

when you get to it, it'll oc pretty well, and at tight timings ;)
(i have two sticks, both can hit the limit of my memory controller of 250mhz at 2.5-2-2-10)

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-440&depa=0

I'd say the Corsair Value line is some of the best memory for the money. Only $87 for a gig.

[3-Phase]

best stuff for the money
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-546&depa=1

when you get to it, it'll oc pretty well, and at tight timings ;)
(i have two sticks, both can hit the limit of my memory controller of 250mhz at 2.5-2-2-10)

If I buy two of those sticks will they work ok in dual channel? I thought that it was best to buy sticks that come in pairs since they are "matched."

[burningrave101]

If I buy two of those sticks will they work ok in dual channel? I thought that it was best to buy sticks that come in pairs since they are "matched."

As long as both sticks are the same then you shouldn't have any problems with them running in dual channel mode.

[umbra]

I would go with ocz they seem to like amd's better

[PClark99]

The Patriot XBL is good stuff. I have a gig of that.

You should also consider Corsair XMS4400C2.5, that is TCCD also.

For the money Patriot is pretty good stuff.

[3-Phase]

What is so special about TCCD? What brands use it?

[ashmedai]

What is so special about TCCD? What brands use it?

Because I'm lazy, I'll just answer that with another quote:


been around for a little while. has.. a cult like following though, which i find amusing. anywho, the premise of thise stuff is that you can do really high speeds (often 300mhz+ with good sticks) and doesn't need much voltage, thus a dfi board or ocz booster is not needed. the downside is that it needs high latencies to get there. expect to have to drop down to 3-4-4 or 2.5-4-3 to get the most out of this ram. also be prepared to do a little bit of testing to find which voltage works best. some sticks actually start decreasing performance if you give them more than 2.7-2.8v, while some can take up to 3v

[(cf)Eclipse]

personally, i think TCCD is a waste of money. get value ram that is known to have CH-5 (twinmos SP or mushkin blue) and give it around 3.2-3.4v with a fan on it and see how high you can get at 2-2-2 ;)


though, oc'ing your ram is pointless in most cases unless you're just trying to have fun tweaking your rig


edit: thanks ash :D
i love answering the same question twice. hehe

[holycpu]

personally, i think TCCD is a waste of money. get value ram that is known to have CH-5 (twinmos SP or mushkin blue) and give it around 3.2-3.4v with a fan on it and see how high you can get at 2-2-2 ;)


though, oc'ing your ram is pointless in most cases unless you're just trying to have fun tweaking your rig


edit: thanks ash :D
i love answering the same question twice. hehe

haha :D

[3-Phase]

Does the Ballistix have the best performance for AMD mobos?

Could anyone provide a link to a good review?

[(cf)Eclipse]

not the best performance. good BH-5 gets that. then CH-5/UTT come next. ballistix isn't too far behind though, and doesn't require godlike amounts of voltage :D
this has some good info
http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2386

[SirKenin]

Four of them are quite good. I put my vote in for the OCZ though. Ok..... I'm biased. lol

[slamgoku]

no one mentioned G.Skill. Get this ram its the greatest. No need to overclock it when its rated for such high speeds.

[(cf)Eclipse]

note the 200-250 price range. the good g.skill is out of that. ;)

[robberbaron]

no one mentioned G.Skill. Get this ram its the greatest. No need to overclock it when its rated for such high speeds.

BH-5 beats it though at speeds of 265-270 with tight timings. Latencies are more important than high ram speeds, though having both is nice. Unfortunately, you cant have both with TCCD.

[zeebs]

BH5 may beat it given a constant processor speed but overall I like the TCCD better. It will generally lead to higher performance as you can scale the memory and processor together in 1:1 which is good because overall processor speed is highly related to memory performance on A64. Besides, the chances anyone would get Bh5 in a 1gb kit that could do 270 are incredibly slim. Only the gawdliest Bh5 can do 270, let alone at low enough volts to make it feasible for 24/7 operation. Get good TCCD (2.5-3-3 or 2.5-4-4 max) for 24/7, save the Bh5 for benching.

Out of your choices I would get the mushkin for the budget choice, because I love the quality of their products and warranty.

For the highest performing pair, that would be the OCZ plat R2 hands down. My Plat R2 used to do upwards of DDR 575.

[burningrave101]

BH5 may beat it given a constant processor speed but overall I like the TCCD better. It will generally lead to higher performance as you can scale the memory and processor together in 1:1 which is good because overall processor speed is highly related to memory performance on A64. Besides, the chances anyone would get Bh5 in a 1gb kit that could do 270 are incredibly slim. Only the gawdliest Bh5 can do 270, let alone at low enough volts to make it feasible for 24/7 operation. Get good TCCD (2.5-3-3 or 2.5-4-4 max) for 24/7, save the Bh5 for benching.

Out of your choices I would get the mushkin for the budget choice, because I love the quality of their products and warranty.

For the highest performing pair, that would be the OCZ plat R2 hands down. My Plat R2 used to do upwards of DDR 575.

I have a gig of OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev2 and i've run it at around 300Mhz but i dont notice any real improvements. Overclocking the RAM and tightening the timings just isn't going to make a noticeable difference on an Athlon 64. The memory controller is integrated on-die and its already operating at the speed of the CPU. Athlon 64's dont need alot of bandwidth, especially if their dual channel. Excessive bandwidth just doesn't do anything except give you a few more points in synthetic benchmarks.

If you want to see a real difference in performance then buy 2GB of cheaper RAM. You will be able ot multitask much better because you wont have to worry about closing all your programs all the time and games that can make use of more then 1GB of RAM will perform better as well.

All the little programs that you run in the background like Anti-Virus software, Firewalls, instant messengers, and so on suck up RAM resources. Windows XP alone gets a good chunk for itself.

If you want better performance then go for 2 gig instead of thinking your going to get extreme performance out of just overclocking a gig.

[3-Phase]

Ok, so you are all saying that I should either get the OCZ, Ballistix, or Corsair. Out of these which would be the best for gamming?

[ashmedai]

TwinMOS TMSP/400 if you can do 3.2V (also is the cheapest)
Corsair Ballistix if you can't
Patriot if you want 2GB

[altec_tech]

I'd say Corsair. Based on what someone said up top that OCZ doesn't have noticable improvements when OC'ing.

I have no idea about Patriot, but I am in the same price range as you right now and am also wondering about RAM, but so many people use Corsair, and love it much more, so I will just jump on the bandwagon too.

Too bad no one has Corsair AND OCZ memory so that we can test them on similar machines.

EDIT: Why Patriot if you want 2GB? Does it perform better than Corsair at 4x512 or even OCZ at 4x512? For me, I was going to get 1gb initially (just like how I plan on getting an MVP[ATI's SLI] mobo an an R520, and upgrading to TWO R520's when it starts becoming outdated).

[ashmedai]

Because Patriot has fast reasonably priced 1GB modules. I wasn't considering 4x512 because there are compatibility issues with that configuration in a lot of systems (especially the ones where the motherboard only had 3 slots).

Corsair...most of the good I've heard about them is several years old. And I've heard bad more recently. So I'd be rather wary of them.

And while OCZ is very good (more or less depending on what chips they used in that specific line), I'd still go with the ones I cited. The TwinMOS in my sig was $110 for 2x512, and it's the same chips as in OCZ VX, without the large price tag and nerve gas name. Robberbaron is using the same memory also (he's the one that tipped me off on the stuff), Eclipse has the Ballistix. Burningrave is a big advocate of going with 2GB, I'm told that in WoW it can make a difference, plus if you do a lot of content creation stuff it'll help there. Most games the significant amount peaks out a little over 512 anyway so usually 2x512 is a good way to go, especially as it overclocks better.

[SirKenin]

I talked to a guy at my suppliers today and he said he spent good money on a Corsair DC kit and it wouldn't o/c more than 5% if that tells you anything.

[3-Phase]

I guess I'll go with the Ballistix. Eclipse said he runs at 2.5-2-2-10. The Corsair says it runs at 2-2-2-5. What is the significance of that last number?

[ashmedai]

The middle two are most important so you should be all set.

[slamgoku]

note the 200-250 price range. the good g.skill is out of that. ;)
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-231-002&depa=0
seems to me that is GOOD and under 250 shipped.

[slamgoku]

BH-5 beats it though at speeds of 265-270 with tight timings. Latencies are more important than high ram speeds, though having both is nice. Unfortunately, you cant have both with TCCD.
Those timings seem tight considering im running at 280mhz

[altec_tech]

Okay, so which one of these memory stick set-ups are the fastest and most OCable on stock cooling (with a Winchester 3500+) Please note, take the fact that I don't plan OCing to the max I can for I am not wanting to wear down my components so quickly, but I do want to OC a lot (3500+ to at least 4000+ speeds). So... which one?

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-523&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-890&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-454&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-551&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-550&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-227-017&depa=1


P.S.: Do you literally overclock your RAM? Or do you overclock your processor, which in turn is causing your RAM to overclock, meaning you are overclocking both the RAM and the processor just by overclocking the processor? OR do you have to do both? Just wondering.

EDIT: Links doubled, fixed now.

[(cf)Eclipse]

3 and 4 are the same.
and what happened to the balllistix? if you don't want to oc to the max, ballistix would be even better. keep tighter timings than everything else the longest with the least voltage.
tccd has to back off to 2.5-3-3.. normally around 220-230mhz
bh/ch based ram needs too much voltage to get anywhere far
while on the other hand, the ballistix can get to 240-250mhz with reasonable voltage and at 2.5-2-2. imo, it's the best option for the situation, but i'm probably biased.

if you have to go with one of the ones above, get the second one (ocz pc3200el rev2)

[altec_tech]

No, I fixed it now. Also... I don't really understand what you just said :(

keep tighter timings than everything else the longest with the least voltage.
tccd has to back off to 2.5-3-3.. normally around 220-230mhz
bh/ch based ram needs too much voltage to get anywhere far
while on the other hand, the ballistix can get to 240-250mhz with reasonable voltage and at 2.5-2-2. imo, it's the best option for the situation, but i'm probably biased.

I don't really get what you mean by TCCD backing off, and why and what is tccd. I understand the mhz part. bh/ch... what? And what do you guys mean about keeping tighter timings? Aren't timings either short or long? :confused: Man, I'm not really RAM savvy. I might want to OC much more but I want it to be stable as possible, so getting a higher DDR(like DDR500-550) should allow for more stability when at let's say 600 or something, or when the processor is up to around 2.8ghz. But I do not know what you are saying about voltage? If you have less voltage, it doesn't age as much?

Please let me know which one would allow for the highest OC'ing (with stock cooling) and still allow for the most stability. But I do not want it just to be good at doing benchmarks, I'm talking about performing well in speed as well, and data rate. I would like it to be quick, stable, and very OC'able, so why not that $269 Corsair DDR550?

[(cf)Eclipse]

the sticky is handy.. it's probably really heavy stuff, but if you manage to make it through the 4th post, you should understand a lot more of what we're talking about
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=760374
(linked for convenience)

i'll dig up my post on the 4 important chips used to make ram sticks with
edit:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=886507

sorry about all the reading.. but it's the best way to learn ;)


edit2: know that ram speed/timings have a very limited effect on actual performance with an a64. as long as you have ram that can do 200mhz, you'll be fine, and you can always use dividers to keep the ram within speeds that it can do as you overclock the cpu.

[ashmedai]

To elucidate, CPU speed is most significant, and A64 architecture is designed in such a way as to let you clock the CPU up to however high without ever moving the memory more than a couple MHz from where it started. Therefore if you put memory in an A64 system that is stable but not significantly overclockable you can still have an embarrassingly high CPU overclock so it's not the end of the world.