IC7 - 2.4c Setup Memory OC question

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Operaghost

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jun 4, 2004
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I'm getting a new setup and curious what rated speed of RAM to get. I want to OC but I'm not interested in changing an voltages, just increasing speeds. I want to get a gig of ram but I also don't wanna pay an arm and a leg. I do however want some QUALITY ram, so I'm lookin at Mushkin, Corsair etc. I am looking to spend around 200-250 bucks. Gonna be running them dual channel, most likely asynchrounously. I'd like low latency because its basically a gaming machine.I want to try and run the FSB stable at about 250mhz.

Thanks in advance for any advice.
 
1gig of Kingston HyperX DDR 500 PC-4000 memory for $250

When looking for some good prices ebay is a good bet. Also Kingston memory carries a life time warrenty. Also with this you can run your Rig 1:1 and even though the cas is 3 as compared to a cas of 2 with some ddr 400 the benefits from running a 1:1 with ddr 400 is gonna give you better performance than running asynch with ddr 400.
 
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IC7, IS7, and other i865/i875 boards have trouble with RAM made with Winbond CH-5 modules. Do a little research before buying to prevent making the same mistake I did and buying some Corsair XMS3200LL (Ver 1.2 is CH-5). I can't do much in the way of overclocking the RAM or using memory dividers.

Try some Corsair XMS3200XL when it is released (samsung modules) or go for some Current PC4000 RAM from OCZ, or Corsair. (not CH-5 chips)
 
I can understand that I usually only buy from people with high ratings when I actually do buy off of ebay just giving you an option not to mention that that seller has a good rating but its your money and not mine.
 
How do I find out which chips the modules are made with? Mailing the manufacturer I find can get you nowhere fast.
 
Try looking in the manufacturer-run support/community forums. For example: This may help. I know it helped me!
 
when i was building the system in my sig, i had to choose between low fsb/low latency, or high fsb/high latency. i chose the high fsb/latency route and got the ocz pc4200 (266fsb) and i have it running at 271fsb 1:1 at 2.8v. the ram needs 2.8v to run at 266fsb. i can get about 6.2-6.3gb's of memory bandwidth using sandra, which is much faster than peoples low latency ram ive seen.

my opinion would be to get the fastest ram you can find and try to run it at 1:1. ocz has pc4200, 4400, and 4800 (266, 275, 300). the pc4800 is still really expensive but the pc4400 should be around ~300-310 for 1gb. i paid 275$ for 1gb (2x512) of ocz pc4200
 
Thanks for the replies everyone.

Acascianelli, I didn't see any sig of yours but I appreciate the recommendations. I have to take back my statement about not wanting to increase any voltages. I will most likely set the VDDR to 2.8 like you've suggested, I've heard that in order to go past about 250mhz FSB on those boards you've got to up the voltage a tad. Thanks again for the info.
 
Abit IC7-G Bios 24
Pentium 4 [email protected]
Koolance EXOS CPU/NB/GPU
OCZ PC4200 1GB 271FSB 1:1
2x160GB SATA Raid 0
Geforce FX 5600 Ultra 450/850

thats my system :)
 
Nice OC man.

What timings is your RAM running at if I might ask?
I doubt I'll get my OC that high since I'm not watercooling (yet), but I am hoping to hit the 3 ghz mark. To your knowledge is there an OC advantage that the IC7-G has over the base IC7 model?

Also I've heard that the NB fans on these series of Abit boards are horrible. Would you recommend getting an aftermarket one and just replace it from day 1?
 
my latency's are maxed out at 3-4-4-8. i was able to do 3.2ghz on the stock heatsink, i keep it at 3.25 because i want to have the ram running 1:1. it will do 3.3 but i have to run the ram at 5:4.

before i switched to watercooling i had the later revision heatsink on the NB, the big blue one versus the smaller one with plastic cover. i didnt have a problem with it while i was using it.

i dont believe there is an overclock advantage between the ic7 and ic7-g. but the ic7-max3 does allow more voltage to the ram, and the cooling on the mofsets. that would be a overclocking advantage but i didnt want to pay 180$ for that. i got this board refurbished from newegg for $80.
 
What is mofsets? I keep seeing that in posts and I am unclear as to what that is. Also, I am using this new rig for strictly gaming, so I think I'm gonna be aiming for lower latency timings, but I don't necessarily have to sacrifice my FSB speed for that right? Could I run at 266 mhz FSB and still be able to find RAM rated for timings around 2-3 instead of 3-4? I know timings don't make THAT huge of an impact, especially if you aren't paging much, but games tend to have random accesses to memory more than regular applications so therefore I'd want quicker accesses over a higher bandwidth? Again this is just my generalized summary of articles and such I've read. Thanks again, I appreciate the discussion.
 
yes you could run your fsb at a high fsb and just use a multiplier to run your ram at a lower speed, if you go in your bios you should see a ram divider option and you can set it to 5:4 or 3:2.

mofsets are the voltage regulators on the motherboard. they can get very hot.
 
I guess my question is then, why can't I run synchronously (1:1) with low latency timings? such as 2-2-2-6, or 3-3-2-8
 
they simply dont make ram fast enough for that. the fastest youll be able to do is maybe.....MAYBE 230-240fsb 1:1, and to get that youd need bh5 or bh6 (cant remember which it is) ram and youd need to modify your motherboard to overvolt the ram.
 
Ok so basically, I'd be better off running asycnronously cause I'll get higher FSB speeds, thus a higher CPU OC also correct? I'm just trying to decide whether to buy say PC3700, or PC4000, or PC4200, being as how I don't know how high I'll be able to take it. That makes this decision tough to make. As I don't wanna spend more money than I need to. If I'm gonna top out at 225mhz FSB, then I sure as hell don't need PC4000 right? So Iin conclusion I'm lost as to what speed of RAM to get.
 
If you buy a IC7-G (doesnt even matter which MAX) and you couple that with a 2.4C and all you can get is a 25Mhz OC then God really must not like you to much to give you probably the most crappiest 2.4C chip on the planet.

You shouldnt definitly buy the fastest ram you can afford b/c chances are you will be able to reach that speed on your fsb as well however the thing that you mite want to think about is cooling although I've read on plenty occasions where people OC a 2.4C to a 3.0C with just the stock cooling (yea the chip is that good and thats why its also so popular) and oh yea you should try hard to run it in sync and not in async.
 
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