BH-5 and TCCD: Which one and where?

tsuehpsyde

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Oct 22, 2004
Messages
6,604
Okay, after getting an XP-120 and not worrying about CPU temps, I've decided to get some better memory. From what I've read and heard, BH-5 chips and TCCD chips are the best for overclocking. My question is...where can I get these chips? What memory comes with these chips, and where can I get them? After reading joecuddle's review of memory timings, I need some better memory because 3-3-3-8 is not cutting it imo anymore lol. I want something I can run 2-2-2-6 with some nice MHz behind it...any insight guys?
 
I bought this memory:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-231-004&depa=0

While it is not name brand, it is the best memory I have ever owned. I got Week 431 TCCD chips on these sticks and it screams. Look at my overclock in the sig.

What is even better, is that these sticks run DDR400 (pc3200) at 2-2-2-5 timings. These sticks are definently kick ass!

Oh yeah, these sticks are also hand tested before you get them. You get a little paper slip in the package that tells you the best timings for different speeds. I found my ram was better than what the paper said, but it could just be the fact that I have a better system. (They tested on a Asus P4P800)


Hope this helps.
 
Warmonkey said:
I bought this memory:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-231-004&depa=0

While it is not name brand, it is the best memory I have ever owned. I got Week 431 TCCD chips on these sticks and it screams. Look at my overclock in the sig.

What is even better, is that these sticks run DDR400 (pc3200) at 2-2-2-5 timings. These sticks are definently kick ass!

Oh yeah, these sticks are also hand tested before you get them. You get a little paper slip in the package that tells you the best timings for different speeds. I found my ram was better than what the paper said, but it could just be the fact that I have a better system. (They tested on a Asus P4P800)


Hope this helps.


G.Skill is extremely popular, it's just not mainstream. It's made for overclockers. Any hardcore overclocker or bencher probably not only knows of GSkill, but probably has used or has a stick or two. I've seen DDR460 GSkill at 340 Mhz before, DDR680 ;)
 
It was my understanding that PC-4400 was for Pentium systems only and usually wasn't compatible with Athlon64 machines?
 
joecuddles said:
G.Skill is extremely popular, it's just not mainstream. It's made for overclockers. Any hardcore overclocker or bencher probably not only knows of GSkill, but probably has used or has a stick or two. I've seen DDR460 GSkill at 340 Mhz before, DDR680 ;)

Very true!

xyoufailmex said:
Personally I'd go for Corsair for my TCCD if I were you... Maybe 10 bucks more?

I wouldnt go with Corsair with the AMD 64's. I'd stick to OCZ or Gskill.
 
James Earl Ray, what kinda memory are you running in your box? You have some impressive overclocks on it...
 
tsuehpsyde said:
James Earl Ray, what kinda memory are you running in your box? You have some impressive overclocks on it...

Right now, Gskill Le. But I also use OCZ 4200el Platinum.
 
So PC-4400 actually WILL work in an Athlon64 system? I swear I read somewhere it was made for Pentium 4 machines and generally wasn't compatible with A64's.
 
tsuehpsyde said:
So PC-4400 actually WILL work in an Athlon64 system? I swear I read somewhere it was made for Pentium 4 machines and generally wasn't compatible with A64's.

Maybe the DDR-2. But 4400 will work just fine.
 
I'm using [see sig]. Rock solid memory, TCCD. I think BH5 was better, but good luck finding 4x512, right? ; )

For your A64, as long as the memory will fit into your memory slots, it's probably compatible. This wasn't always the case, as some memory wouldn't work in some boards even if they were *physically* compatible, but these days you can *generally* throw any two combinations together for a working system. It comes down to getting the right memory for the performance you want, and TCCD is the champ.

Some of it is packaged with tight timings at stock speed, some of it is packaged with loostened timing for a higher speed, the performance changes slightly, but you want a happy compromise of both. (I believe that) there's essentially no difference between TCCD of one speed and timing combination or another (correct me if I'm wrong there). You'd want a better brand for more money for the warranty, tech support, better screening process for individual chips for an overall higher quality stick, etc., but, to sum it up, TCCD is the best stuff out now for any system that uses DDR(1), which, so far, every A64 uses.
 
with your board go with TCCD, i have my Mushkin BH-5 with mine and it's not doing too hot. (i was thinking about selling it for some TCCD ram)

max i can get into windows is 220mhz, max stable is 217 (maybe 218). Lowered the timings and cpu multiplier and still no luck at anything higher than 220. This is also with my OCZ ram booster and i've given the ram any where from 3.0v to 3.6v.

It could be my chip that has a max of 2.6ghz (although i tried a multiplier of 8x and still couldn't get over 220), but i can't really tell until i get some different ram.
 
joecuddles said:
G.Skill is extremely popular, it's just not mainstream. It's made for overclockers. Any hardcore overclocker or bencher probably not only knows of GSkill, but probably has used or has a stick or two. I've seen DDR460 GSkill at 340 Mhz before, DDR680 ;)
I second that ;)
 
PureBooYah said:
with your board go with TCCD, i have my Mushkin BH-5 with mine and it's not doing too hot. (i was thinking about selling it for some TCCD ram)

max i can get into windows is 220mhz, max stable is 217 (maybe 218). Lowered the timings and cpu multiplier and still no luck at anything higher than 220. This is also with my OCZ ram booster and i've given the ram any where from 3.0v to 3.6v.

It could be my chip that has a max of 2.6ghz (although i tried a multiplier of 8x and still couldn't get over 220), but i can't really tell until i get some different ram.

Try the 1.41 or 1.51 BIOS', they're optimized for BH5 / TCCD if I remember correctly. Some people had issues with BH5 and TCCD with earlier BIOS'.
 
Actuallly if your going to O/C I am going to recommend against TCCD. I am having an awfull time with my epox board at anything but stock speeds (ocz plat rev 2). If you can wait I just ordered some ballistix on the advice of someone in another forum. I will post the results of my testing here. I want to point out that I do not think it is the fault of the memory at all. I think there is some kind of mismatch with the memory and the mem contrloller in the a64. If I had to speculate I think that the mem controller "enhancements" in the new a64 rev will fix these probs.
 
What about this Patriot memory they're talking about on the AnandTech forums?
I had never heard of them until now, but the stuff is made in America and it's tccd.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-220-033&depa=0
http://www.pdpsys.com/products/index.jsp?source=dc

This is actually rated to run at PC4200 at 3448 timings.
The differance between the Patriot memory and the GSkill LE memory is that the GSkill is rated to run at 2.5, 337 at PC4200, whereas the patriot is 3448. So basically, they're both the same, but the Patriot memory only costs $219. Actually, it would be closer to the LD memory running PC4200 at 3448, which is going for about $235 after a $15 rebate on Newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-231-004&depa=0
Thread on Anand talking about it is here.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=1472491&enterthread=y

What would you pick? Gskill LD or Patriot?
 
Shumph said:
Actuallly if your going to O/C I am going to recommend against TCCD. I am having an awfull time with my epox board at anything but stock speeds (ocz plat rev 2). If you can wait I just ordered some ballistix on the advice of someone in another forum. I will post the results of my testing here. I want to point out that I do not think it is the fault of the memory at all. I think there is some kind of mismatch with the memory and the mem contrloller in the a64. If I had to speculate I think that the mem controller "enhancements" in the new a64 rev will fix these probs.
Really, this with 2.65V on TccD 431
gskill3.JPG

3400-3.JPG
 
James Earl Ray said:
Yes I will. How is your X800xt doin?
It is ok, but need to finish the h2o set up. Been busy with Asus A8N SLI and it sucks :( . Set neo2 back on vapo.
 
The pdp stuff is tccd with the bp pcb. If no serious speed binning has been done which I believe is true of all brands of ram, the pdp will perform the same. I have four of those pdp's and both sets overclock like mad. However, you are not going to get good overclocks with 4 of them in the same system. It's just too much stress for the memory controller to handle. It's really your call, whether you want to save some money or go with the supposedly tested stuff.

My thoughts on speed binning, I think that these major companies, Corsair, Kingston, OCZ, Gskill, and etc. just randomly pick some sticks off the line and test them at the higher speeds if they do at all. If they pass (which probably 90% of them do) then they get marked up in price and specs. If they don't pass, they go in the huge pool of low latency pc3200 memory and get sold in huge batches to oem's, or people just rma them and say that the memory didn't work as specified timings. I believe this, because I've always bought the cheapest or lesser known memory, but the same chips and stuff and have gotten the same average overclock as the name brand stuff.
 
Rix2357 said:
My thoughts on speed binning, I think that these major companies, Corsair, Kingston, OCZ, Gskill, and etc. just randomly pick some sticks off the line and test them at the higher speeds if they do at all. If they pass (which probably 90% of them do) then they get marked up in price and specs. If they don't pass, they go in the huge pool of low latency pc3200 memory and get sold in huge batches to oem's, or people just rma them and say that the memory didn't work as specified timings. I believe this, because I've always bought the cheapest or lesser known memory, but the same chips and stuff and have gotten the same average overclock as the name brand stuff.
Absolutely, it depends on what platforms they used and how extensively they tested it, hence that some low 3200 can performs crazy clock when others with higher specs/rate(same chip and pcb) failed ;)
 
OCZ Voltage eXtreme is probably your best option....most people are getting AT LEAST DDR500 with 2-2-2-5-1T timings. Just you'll also need a DDR Booster since these puppies don't run on much less than 3.3V. :cool:
 
bh-5 is more or less a waste on a64 platforms. you simply do not need the raw mhz. the performance increase just is not worth it.
 
Ahh just found out that the probs on my board may be related to a voltage issue to slots 1 and 2 and not a tccd issue. So I will retest and repost.
 
I'd go with some Gskill if you want all around good memory with a great oc. OCZ has just developed a new product called VX for voltage extreme which oc's extremely well. Most modules on an A64 system can reach 250Mhz at 2-2-2-5 1T but as stated somewhere above it needs quite a bit of voltage to achieve such performance. Generally to feed the ram enough volts one needs a volt mod on their board or a booster. So if you want max oc I'd go with Gskill but if you want nice tight timings go with the OCZ. Have a fun finding some VX online because Fry's ordered up all the batches so thats where it can be found, but Gskill can be found at a few e-tailers such as newegg and excaliber for a great price versus some OCZ 4200el, 3700el and even their 3200 plat. rev. 2.
 
Whatever you do, don't listen to this person :

Jason711 said:
bh-5 is more or less a waste on a64 platforms. you simply do not need the raw mhz. the performance increase just is not worth it.
 
Jason711 said:
bh-5 is more or less a waste on a64 platforms. you simply do not need the raw mhz. the performance increase just is not worth it.

yeah, dude, ur smoking something REALLY good :p

anyway, the PDP or GSkill should do fine...either one...i would pick the GSkill, cuz for the extra little bit, you get a guarenteed speed....
 
It's going to be awhile before I get because my system's being really gay and I'm trying to diagnose that problem before I can overclock. What I want tho is really tight memory timings...like 2-2-2-5 1T at like 230MHz or so...If I can hit 2.7GHz I'll be happy. But like I know I could drop the Multi and raise the HTT but then you have to raise timings which in essense, then kills performance at a chance you might get more memory bandwidth and null out that issue....bah, someone just hand me over that FX-55 with 3.4GHz and then I can rest easy lol.
 
If you ant tight timings that bad just get the VX which can usually do 2-2-2-5 250Mhz. You said you'd be pleased with an oc of 2.7Ghz which may not be achievable without water or phase cooling. Maybe you have a good chip that an hadle it on air but I dont think I've seen one do that yet. Do remember that FX-55's with strained silicon average an oc aroung 2.8Ghz. So remember if those top line cpus are reaching that with all their extra features you may very well have a hard time doing 2.6 due to no strained silicon.
 
Alex41290 said:
yeah, dude, ur smoking something REALLY good :p

anyway, the PDP or GSkill should do fine...either one...i would pick the GSkill, cuz for the extra little bit, you get a guarenteed speed....

uh no... quite the contrary i assure you. the performance gains on the a64 platform are quite minimal above 200mhz on the memory bus. we are talking around 5-10% at best.
 
Jason711 said:
uh no... quite the contrary i assure you. the performance gains on the a64 platform are quite minimal above 200mhz on the memory bus. we are talking around 5-10% at best.
really? ;)
 
Cpt Twitchy said:
If you ant tight timings that bad just get the VX which can usually do 2-2-2-5 250Mhz. You said you'd be pleased with an oc of 2.7Ghz which may not be achievable without water or phase cooling. Maybe you have a good chip that an hadle it on air but I dont think I've seen one do that yet. Do remember that FX-55's with strained silicon average an oc aroung 2.8Ghz. So remember if those top line cpus are reaching that with all their extra features you may very well have a hard time doing 2.6 due to no strained silicon.


Ummm, Actually FX55 reach about 2.8ghz average on air, with H2o cooling they can achive more then 3ghz and with phase change i have seen them as high as 3.6 to 3.7ghz. FX55 are actually beasts at overclocking and do so pretty easily, via the strained silicon process. FX53's are not. about the best you can get with the FX53 is about 2.7ghz. Even though have seen one at 3.5ghz but thats rare. even at that an FX53 @ 2.7ghz would whip any P4 at 4.3ghz any day.

The Cpt
 
Right now the memory to get is the G.Skill PC4400.or the OCZ PC4200EL platinum. They both work great by the way with A64 and FX systems and have excellent bandwith performance for overclocking the cpu and still maintaining extreme bandwith output and speeds. Running 1T is much better then 2 T for perforance with these cpu's as well. But if you think Tight timings like 2-2-2-5 are gonna make a difference they wont and you should read this.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=845934

The Cpt.
 
Back
Top