Did get a few memory errors after all at only 2.0 volts. Gonna try 2.1 and get back to you. The stuff passed hours and hours of memtest at 1.9v @ 888MHz without breaking a sweat though. Great "cheapo" ram indeed. 8GB is generally more touchy to run than 4GB.
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8GB RAM - The Final Thread.
- Thread starter Maximos
- Start date
Did get a few memory errors after all at only 2.0 volts. Gonna try 2.1 and get back to you. The stuff passed hours and hours of memtest at 1.9v @ 888MHz without breaking a sweat though. Great "cheapo" ram indeed. 8GB is generally more touchy to run than 4GB.
bobn4burton
Gawd
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2002
- Messages
- 722
Hmmm...
I was planning to put 8gig in my new build. But I was also planning to overclock pretty heavily, so maybe that won't work very well.
Is there no way to have 8 gig and overclock quite a bit as well and have a stable machine???
I was planning to put 8gig in my new build. But I was also planning to overclock pretty heavily, so maybe that won't work very well.
Is there no way to have 8 gig and overclock quite a bit as well and have a stable machine???
Oh yeah, my rig is overclocked to 3.33GHz, and that's with a quad core 100% on all four cores cooled with an air cooler I picked up for $21. Temps never much above 50c at load. I've got the memory overclocked to 888MHz, still linked, but at a 3:2 ratio. I wanted to push my CPU some more without being memory limited. I'm still gonna push the memory a little more too at 2.1v now that I have a good memory cooler installed. It is harder to overclock 4 2GB sticks than 2 2GB or 4x1GB, but still possible. My ram is just "cheapo" ram too. Only $69 per 4GB kit, no rebates, free shipping, too. Runs great. If you want 8 gig and think you'll use it, go for it. It's so cheap now, and still good. If you won't use it though, don't waste your money. Select few really NEED 8GB. I do a lot of photoshopping, plus gaming, plus video editing, plus web authoring, and a bunch of other stuff, sometimes a few of these things listed at the same time, too. And I like to have all of Vista's bells and whistles enabled. Having a good mobo helps a lot, and you need a 64-bit OS or 4 of your 8 GB will be wasted.
bobn4burton
Gawd
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2002
- Messages
- 722
Cool...so with 8gig of memory is it just hard to overclock the memory? Having 8 gig of memory won't limit my cpu overclock (assuming I use a lower memory ratio of course)...??
If that's the case, then I'm good.
If that's the case, then I'm good.
It's a little harder. Not too bad. I've had fun overclocking mine. Just so you know, I pulled some late hours to see if I could pull 1000MHz with these A-Data 800 sticks. First I tried 2.0v. I figured since it ran good at 888MHz with 1.9 volts, 2.0 would give it even more voltage overhead to run faster. Ran memtest and on the 4th test, 1st pass it threw like 4 or 5 errors. Figured maybe it needed 2.1v, so I changed it, ran memtest again, and it threw like 8 or 9 errors. I thought to myself, "Man this is some power-hungry memory.... " But I have my nice ram cooler installed so I figured it was safe to give 2.2v a try! Big mistake. Ran memtest and in like 6 seconds it was already up to 1300+ ERRORS!!! I screamed, "NO NO!! I'm frying my RAM!! RESET RESET AARGGHH!!! CRAP!!"
I decided that maybe by some freak of nature less might be more.... So I tried 1.85v. Ran memtest, threw like 3 errors. I thought to myself, "not too bad...BUT I WANT ZERO ERRORS!" So I tried 1.95v. My motherboard and BIOS have precise memory voltage increments, which helped give me more specific settings to try. Turns out that 1.95v is a real sweet spot! After 4 passes of memtest and ZERO errors on any of the tests, I set a new speed/stability record with my rig. Ran Prime95 with memory and cpu intensive tests, again NO errors, even with hours of runtime. YAY!!
This is the memory I have:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1264468
I have two sets of it and it's been a blast so far. This is the memory cooler I use to keep it cool:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835202003&Tpk=ocz+memory+cooler
Works great and looks sexy, but a little too much shiny brightness for me. I'm going to spray paint it black. It'll match my mobo's black PCB that way.
1.95v isn't that far above the stock 1.8v. And I'm still running it at stock 5-5-5-18 timings. 1.95v is quite low and good for a 25% MHz overclock, and I don't even have to sacrifice my timings. Now the test will be time. How long will it hold up at those speeds/voltages? And how will my 680i handle the higher voltage output to the ram? I think I'll be fine, because the 680i is known to have problems more in the 2.3v to 2.4v range from what I've read. And my ram is still cool to the touch, especially under the memory cooler which is quiet, and pushes a lot of air. Kinda hard to mount, but does a great job. (I put a makeshift clear plastic shield under it, not because I think it will fall, but just in case it does I don't want it to fry my 8800GT right underneath it.)
Well I had to sell two of my 4 sticks of ReaperX because they couldn't fit properly and I think I would have ended up straining my slots too much.
I picked up the Titanium pc8000 (same chips, different heatspreader) but I can't get the RAM to post with a FSB of anything higher than 390. Even then, it's not stable.
I can get it stable at 380, but then my CPU is only at 3.42GHz with 8GB at 5-5-5-12 @ 1013 MHz instead of 3.6 GHz which was rock stable with 4GB at 5-5-5-12 @ 1066 MHz
Still a decent overclock, but disappointing that the RAM can't handle that extra 53 MHz....
I'm still not sure what's better though:
Q6600 at 3.42 with 8GB at 1013
or
Q6600 at 3.6 with 4GB at 1066
I do mostly gaming and some video editing.
I picked up the Titanium pc8000 (same chips, different heatspreader) but I can't get the RAM to post with a FSB of anything higher than 390. Even then, it's not stable.
I can get it stable at 380, but then my CPU is only at 3.42GHz with 8GB at 5-5-5-12 @ 1013 MHz instead of 3.6 GHz which was rock stable with 4GB at 5-5-5-12 @ 1066 MHz
Still a decent overclock, but disappointing that the RAM can't handle that extra 53 MHz....
I'm still not sure what's better though:
Q6600 at 3.42 with 8GB at 1013
or
Q6600 at 3.6 with 4GB at 1066
I do mostly gaming and some video editing.
For the gaming, probably 3.6 with 4GB at 1066. For the video editing, probably 3.42 with 8GB at 1013, depending on the video application. My max stable right now is 3.33 with the Q6700 and 8GB at 1000MHz. But I've got cheaper ram, and a cheaper HSF for my CPU probably, than what you have. I would expect a higher intel Quad overclock on an intel X38 chipset. Those are good numbers you're running there. What CPU cooler are you using?
The Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme. CPU and heatsink are lapped.
I get about 38 degrees idle and 65-70 load at 3.6 GHz
4gb and you get a large e-penis
8gb and your e-penis gets so big it dies.
Oh no! Not my E-penis! I need that!
4GB of RAM is find for now. with 32bit OS only 3.3GB of 4 will be recognized. So 64bit Vista ultimate is needed. games like Battlefield 2 cna use 2.25GB. The msot intensive games use about 2-2.5GB of RAM and will run a little smother with 4GB over 2GB. Crysis can actually take advantage of 64 bit windows and 4GB of RAM. The extra RAM would allow you to play the game on high settings and run multiple taks int he background. But Crysis is so tough on hardware I would nto reccomend it.
Using Virtual machines or Video editing while gmaing could be a possible use for Having 8GB of RAm. But the CPU may crap out on you do to not having enough CPU cycles even with 4 cores. problem is that applicatiosn can;t take advantage of that much RAM yet. Falcon Northwest will accually ship a comptuer with 8GB of RAM as an option. Ram is so cheap these days you can buy 4GB of low latency RAM with Heatsinks for $80-$100. getting 2 twin packs of 2 x1024 DDR2 modules.
2GB sghould be the norm. 4GB if you are a gamer or edit video. More if you are running a server from your home or think Crysis 2 will actually utilize the extra RAM.
You know, occasionally BF2142 will throw an error when 8GB are in. It's very rare. I can usually play a couple of hours straight with zero errors. But it sometimes throws a memory allocation error. It doesn't know what the heck to do with all that ram, I guess. All my other apps are fine though, and just take what they need, which I'm happy to say is now plenty, even with all the resources vista takes. I like giving more room to prefetch apps, too, as load times have shortened considerable on some of my apps, including BF2142. Apparently the game doesn't know what to do with the extra memory, but Vista does. Oh well....
lol. Mine boots up to 600mb.
I have 8GB under Vista x64. Now, I've heard of people turning off page file and relying fully on RAM and in effect, have had a performance boost. I was under the impression that turning off the page file would actually hinder performance because of the way Windows assigns pagefile/ram usage, though I'm not sure if that was XP specific. Can someone unravel this?
NKDietrich
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2004
- Messages
- 5,442
There is no noticeable benefit to performance by turning off your paging file. After all, if you have plenty of RAM your system is barely using it to begin with. While it usually wont cause problems, if you should ever max out your physical memory for whatever reason, you'll probably crash.
I'll be heading to 16gb of ram on my new build. More ram is always better. I run www.worldcommunitygrid.org, which is similar to Folding@Home, but uses much more memory. On a quad core cpu, i use 2gb of ram with just WCG running. I've seen close to 4gb used while gaming and running WCG. On my new Octo-core machine, i will need at least 6gb, so WTH mise well max it out.
Well, apparently, Vista is using it for something:
I only have a couple instances of FF open along with winamp, mIRC, and some little non-memory intensive programs. Makes me wonder what exactly is utilizing the rest of the memory.
edit: Sidebar is off too + no firewall software.
well i noticed a difference from 4GiB > 8GiB... I think SuperFetch laps up 8GiB... and i hardly call <$200 worth of RAM e-penis
SuperFetch + Vista Sidebar + Messenger is loading a smidge over 2GiB (no AV/firewall etc)... plus with 8GiB you can load ramdisks, virtual machines etc... 8GiB is perfectly rational (at least for these forums)...
I laf (and cry a little) when I boot into my 'compatibility' xp32 raptor drive... the drop in performance without SuperFetch is quite dramatic IMHO
oh and others say that 2GiB is more than sufficient for most users... nah.. i'd say the sweetspot is 4GiB (with Vista at least) with a substantial difference esp in load times due to superfetch...
it's just like how when i bought my raid5 storage system... i thought.. nah... i'll never use up 2.8TB... WRONG... less than 6 months later. ... . now floating about with less than 50GB free.. i'm hunting around for 4 cheap 1TB drives and a new PSU to run raid5 off my ICH8R for a secondary storage..
SuperFetch + Vista Sidebar + Messenger is loading a smidge over 2GiB (no AV/firewall etc)... plus with 8GiB you can load ramdisks, virtual machines etc... 8GiB is perfectly rational (at least for these forums)...
I laf (and cry a little) when I boot into my 'compatibility' xp32 raptor drive... the drop in performance without SuperFetch is quite dramatic IMHO
oh and others say that 2GiB is more than sufficient for most users... nah.. i'd say the sweetspot is 4GiB (with Vista at least) with a substantial difference esp in load times due to superfetch...
it's just like how when i bought my raid5 storage system... i thought.. nah... i'll never use up 2.8TB... WRONG... less than 6 months later. ... . now floating about with less than 50GB free.. i'm hunting around for 4 cheap 1TB drives and a new PSU to run raid5 off my ICH8R for a secondary storage..
What board do you have that will do 16GB and how do you make that happen? I'm just curious.
Gigabyte makes a thingy you can put DDR2 in and use as a ramdisk. I wonder how well it works... I would like one of those. I'd buy eight more gigs of that cheap, but excellent A-Data stuff for a ram disk. Imagine! 8GB ram and an 8GB ramdisk!!! Imagine! Your favorite game on a ramdisk!!! WHEEEE!!!!
He is probably just getting 4 4gb sticks ? Im just using 4gb for vista now and when i game it uses 2.2-2.4gb of ram so yea 4gb is the sweetspot, i plan to upgrade to 8gb in the future
He is probably just getting 4 4gb sticks ? Im just using 4gb for vista now and when i game it uses 2.2-2.4gb of ram so yea 4gb is the sweetspot, i plan to upgrade to 8gb in the future
Where do you buy 4GB sticks????
that never made it into production. they have an iRam drive with 4 DDR one slots (4 GB total memory)
that never made it into production. they have an iRam drive with 4 DDR one slots (4 GB total memory)
Aww. they need to release and 8GB one! And why not more slots for like 16GB?? Or 32GB??? Hahaha. C'mon Gigabye!
i know... or even like OCZ or Corsair, since they can even sell you the ram and make even more money.... i'm guessing you can fit 8 slots in a 5.25 bay... raid 2 of those and you'll have a hella fast 32 gig drive.
sardonic.n7
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2006
- Messages
- 273
I love my 8 GB...just wish it wasn't such a nightmare to overclock on this damn DFI...
Haven't decided yet, either Intel Skulltrail (D5400XS) or Tyan S5396A2NRF. Both take 16gb, with Skulltrail it will have to be via 4Gb FB-DIMM's though.
Supermicro board (plus it has PCIe16)
2xIntel Xeon's
4x2x2GB FBDIMM's
$1600 for:
Good mobo
8 cores running at 2.33GHz, 12MB L2, 45nm, SSE4
8x2GB DDR2 667 FBDIMMs
Deeper pockets will equal faster chips though
cybereality
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2008
- Messages
- 8,787
I think 4GB is a optimum size for 32-bit OS. Especially if you use Photoshop or other DCC tools.
I was reading on an Adobe developer blog about PS ram-usage, and he recommended the more RAM and said PS would use it if available. Even though XP32 can only access like 3.3GB, that doesn't guarantee that there will be 2GB free for PS or any other app/game that wishes to use it. When you factor in the overhead for the OS, background applications and services, etc. its quite possible the RAM will get saturated quickly. So I would say 4GB minimum if you do any photo-editing and surely it helps for games too.
I would like to run 8GB, but DDR3 RAM is crazy $$$.
I was reading on an Adobe developer blog about PS ram-usage, and he recommended the more RAM and said PS would use it if available. Even though XP32 can only access like 3.3GB, that doesn't guarantee that there will be 2GB free for PS or any other app/game that wishes to use it. When you factor in the overhead for the OS, background applications and services, etc. its quite possible the RAM will get saturated quickly. So I would say 4GB minimum if you do any photo-editing and surely it helps for games too.
I would like to run 8GB, but DDR3 RAM is crazy $$$.
Since Photoshop is a 32-bit compiled binary, it can use at maximum 2 gigabytes of RAM regardless of the OS it runs upon (3 gigabytes if it's compiled with the proper compiler switch.) To best make Photoshop take advantage of more RAM, you need to set additional RAM as a RAM Drive and have Photoshop use that as its scratch area.
brassmonkeyc738
n00b
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2008
- Messages
- 1
Lots of good info in this thread. If this is the place to ask questions, I'm stumped and looking for help.
Q6600 on a Gigabyte EX38-DS4 board (flashed F3 bios). Vista 64 premium SP1. I don't want to get into the long story of my exercise in futily, so I'll try to keep it short. With 8GB Corsair 6400C5 and no page file, system appears stable at 5-5-5-18 (voltage upped to 2.05) after overnight prime95 run, 2 passes thru memtest with no reported errors, and no errors reported by Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool. However, SFC /scannow always reports corrupted files that cannot be fixed (occasionally includes NTOSKRNL in the list of corrupted/unfixable), occasional superfetch appcrash, and print spooler critical error on system startup. These errors never occur with 4GB RAM. 8GB at 6-6-6-18 works as well and is where I'm at currently.
Why does everything appear to be stable (memtest, Windows mem diagnostic tool, prime95), but SFC reports corrupt files?
Has anyone else ran the SFC tool after adding 8GB?
There's a lot more to the story that I've left out. If you know something I don't (for example, you have evidence that SFC /scannow is unreliable) please share.
I'll probably take out the 4GB when I'm done, but I'm stubborn and not giving up on this issue until resolved. And until I find out otherwise, SFC /scannow is now the first tool I use on a new build in determining system stability.
Q6600 on a Gigabyte EX38-DS4 board (flashed F3 bios). Vista 64 premium SP1. I don't want to get into the long story of my exercise in futily, so I'll try to keep it short. With 8GB Corsair 6400C5 and no page file, system appears stable at 5-5-5-18 (voltage upped to 2.05) after overnight prime95 run, 2 passes thru memtest with no reported errors, and no errors reported by Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool. However, SFC /scannow always reports corrupted files that cannot be fixed (occasionally includes NTOSKRNL in the list of corrupted/unfixable), occasional superfetch appcrash, and print spooler critical error on system startup. These errors never occur with 4GB RAM. 8GB at 6-6-6-18 works as well and is where I'm at currently.
Why does everything appear to be stable (memtest, Windows mem diagnostic tool, prime95), but SFC reports corrupt files?
Has anyone else ran the SFC tool after adding 8GB?
There's a lot more to the story that I've left out. If you know something I don't (for example, you have evidence that SFC /scannow is unreliable) please share.
I'll probably take out the 4GB when I'm done, but I'm stubborn and not giving up on this issue until resolved. And until I find out otherwise, SFC /scannow is now the first tool I use on a new build in determining system stability.
Well, apparently, Vista is using it for something:
I only have a couple instances of FF open along with winamp, mIRC, and some little non-memory intensive programs. Makes me wonder what exactly is utilizing the rest of the memory.
edit: Sidebar is off too + no firewall software.
Google "Superfetch"