G. Skill or OCZ, Please help

D

Down

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I'm about to purchase parts for my new build and with this only being my second "performance" build, I'm stuck. I'll be using an Abit kn8 Ultra board and a 3700+ San Diego, but unsure on memory between these 2-

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820227210

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820231021

The OCZ (unless I'm way off base) has better timings and is popular w/ the Abit boards.
The G.Skill seems to be popular around here, would be better for oc'ing, and is cheaper.

I haven't seen anyone with G. Skill on an Abit, so that concerns me. The oc'ing potential of Skill is nice, but I have never oc'ed before, I do plan to lightly oc this comp, but stock performance is probably more important, which I would think would go to the OCZ.


Any thoughts or considerations I'm overlooking?

Thanks!
 
i'd go for the g.skill if you're even thinking about oc'ing. far more flexibility when you want to push the mhz, and you'll probably be able to get the timings pretty tight at 200mhz if you wanted to
 
(cf)Eclipse said:
i'd go for the g.skill if you're even thinking about oc'ing. far more flexibility when you want to push the mhz, and you'll probably be able to get the timings pretty tight at 200mhz if you wanted to
Click to expand...
For a point of reference (as I said, I'm EXTREMELY green in my oc'ing knowledge), how noticeable would the difference be if I left the timings per mfr recc-

G. Skill- 3-4-4-8
OCZ- 2-3-2-5

That seems like quite a difference, but OTOH the 64's aren't affected by timings as much as other CPU's, right?

There's a chance I may never oc this comp, so I'm leary of losing out on any performance if I keep everything at stock settings.

It also seems like I've read about alot of incompatibility probs w/ the G. Skill.

Thanks for your input and I look forward to more of your thoughts-

Thanks,
J
 
About timings, be careful since manufacturers define a default timing at a certain speed. OCZ seems to show those timings at 200 MHz while G.Skill show at 250MHz. Check the timings at 200 MHz and you might get the same as the OCZ.
 
Down said:
For a point of reference (as I said, I'm EXTREMELY green in my oc'ing knowledge), how noticeable would the difference be if I left the timings per mfr recc-

G. Skill- 3-4-4-8
OCZ- 2-3-2-5

That seems like quite a difference, but OTOH the 64's aren't affected by timings as much as other CPU's, right?
Click to expand...
Nope. a64's LOVE tight timings :/
 
bLaCktIGErs91 said:
Nope. a64's LOVE tight timings :/
Click to expand...
well.. relatively yes.. what's really important is overall latency. 3-3-3 at 300mhz should be lower latency than 2-2-2 at 200mhz. you just have to find a good tradeoff between timings and mhz to get optimal performance :D

with dual core, bandwidth is a bit more important
 
Xilikon said:
About timings, be careful since manufacturers define a default timing at a certain speed. OCZ seems to show those timings at 200 MHz while G.Skill show at 250MHz. Check the timings at 200 MHz and you might get the same as the OCZ.
Click to expand...
Would the only way to check the timings @ 200MHz be to reduce timings until I become unstable? No chance of them being published/common knowledge?
 
Down said:
Would the only way to check the timings @ 200MHz be to reduce timings until I become unstable? No chance of them being published/common knowledge?
Click to expand...

Well, if you use CPU-Z, you can see the default timings at various speed points (100, 133, 166 and 200). That's where you will get the default timings at 200 MHz.
 
Well those are SPD usually, which are not always correct.

Example: My 1GB G.Skill set

Rated for 2-2-2-5 DDR400. When I put them in, SPD was 2.5-3-3-7 at DDR400. Of course, I was manually able to reduce them and they worked fine, but sometimes SPD is way off the mark, even from what the manufacturer specifies.
 
yeah, i have a lot of oddities like that:

g.skill pc4400 LE, rated for 2-2-2-6 at 200mhz, 2.5-3-3-7 at 275mhz.. defaults to 2.5-4-4-7 at 200mhz
teamgroup xtreem cronus, rated for 3-3-3-8 at 250mhz, defaulted to 3-5-5-10.. but i fixed that problem ;)
all my 2-2-2-6 ocz defaults to 2.5-3-3-6
 
Didn't know SPD would give weird oddities like that. I assumed it was always accurate myself :eek: Then I retract my suggestion and try to play with timings until it's too low to be stable unless someone can suggest a better way ?
 
best way to do it ;)

though i have a really.. detailed method of how to do that written up somewhere :p


aha! the beginnings of my ram oc guide:


try something like this...
first off, get memtest and install it on a floppy or cd
http://www.memtest.org/

next, boot with the memtest floppy/cd in to make sure it boots into that instead of your normal OS. once you have confirmed this, hit escape and then go into the bios.

what we're gonna do is find the tightest timings the ram can run at stock speeds. first, set all the timings to the rated speed of the ram, no auto's should be seen
2nd, make sure the memory ratio is set so that the memory is running at it's rated speed.

from here, we will work on one timing at a time.
start with cas latency (cas or tcl)
1. lower it one step, save bios and restart, boot into memtest
2. in memtest, change to test #5, loop it two or three times
3. if you get no errors, go back to 1, if you do, continue
4. raise timing one step, and go back into memtest, loop #5 4-5 times. you should not get errors ;)

repeat for ras to cas delay (trcd), and ras precharge (trp). just.. leave tras to be cas + trcd + 2

write down the timings when you are done.



now, the where the real fun begins.
1. bump up the fsb or htt 2-3 mhz
2. boot into memtest, do 2 loops of test #5
3. if no errors, go to 1, if errors, continue
4. lower fsb/htt 1mhz
5. go into memtest, and let memtest run. if you get any errors, go back to 4. once you can loop memtest for ~3 hours per gigabyte in your system, write down the mhz obtained along with the timings and voltage it took to get there. i recommend making a chart for this



now we have two options: bump up memory voltage, or raise the timings. either way you go, do follow the above steps. you should always test things systematically.

start out at low voltage and test .1v higher, find max, .1v higher, find max, etc for the voltage. be very careful with voltage, as some can fail prematurely if you give it too much. always be aware of the temps your sticks are running at.


for the timings, you should change one timing at a time until you find which ones make a significant effect on max mhz. here's an example:

let's say i have some memory that's tightest timings at 200mhz is 2-2-2. i find the max at 217mhz with 2.6v.
i try the following combinations and find the max speed at each:
2.5-2-2
2-3-2
2-2-3
and i find that raising the cas latency gives me a very large bump in mhz (250mhz is the new max) while raising either trcd or trp only net me 2-3mhz.

then from 2.5-2-2, i would find the next set of timings that give me the highest bump, i test:
3-2-2
2.5-3-2
2.5-2-3
and this time, i find that the difference is less noticable, but raising trp raises the speed to 259mhz while cas latency and trcd don't get a single mhz

repeat along the lines of the above example until you reach 3-4-4. higher than this is not worthwhile testing.


when you're all done with your testing with both timings and voltage, you'll have a chart that looks somewhat like this:

Code: 
	2-2-2	2.5-2-2	2.5-2-3	2.5-3-3	3-3-3
2.6	216.46	250.51	258.84	268.68	295.17
2.7	219.48	253.54	263.38	273.22	299.71
2.8	224.02	258.08	266.41	277.00	302.73
2.9	226.29	260.35	269.43	279.27	304.25
3	229.32	262.62	273.22	283.81	305.76
3.1	231.59	264.89	275.49	287.60	305.00


if at any point along the way you find that you can't get higher mhz, try to figure out what is holding you back. it can be your cpu running at too high mhz, your memory controller maxing out, or your motherboard hitting a limit. just use some common sense and see if you can get around the limitation

hope that helps some. it's kinda the beginning of my memory overclocking guide i've been meaning to write forever now. any contructive feedback would be GREATLY appreciated.

also, this is just the tip of the iceberg for some boards. with the dfi's, you get the aforementioned 4 timings (cas, trcd, trp, tras) along with command rate (cpc), trc, trfc, trrd, twr, twty, trwt, tref, bank interleaving, the drive strength from the memory controller, the max async latency and read preamble, idle cycle limit, and ability to toggle the counter that limit controlls, along with read/write queue bypass, and the bypass max.
once you start messing with all those to fine tune an oc with the primary 3 timings (cas - trcd - trp), things get pretty intense. fortunately, there's a few rules of thumb you can follow :cool:


edit for future reference:

common performance ram chips..

Winbond BH: (old + new school)
basically the ram that has turned into a myth of sorts. normally does around 240-270mhz.. not great in itself, but the thing to remember is that it can do it at 2-2-2 timings. the downside is that it typically needs 3.2-3.5v to do that. also, higher latencies do not help much.. forget about cas3, it shouldn't boot. cas2.5 often isn't as stable, or simply does not get many more mhz

UTT-CH: (new ch)
known to be in OCZ VX, twinmosSP or mushkin redline. it's similar to bh-5, in the fact that it likes lots of voltage and generally likes 2-2-2 timings. needs more voltage than bh-5, but does not have some of the same issues with higher timings. also, CH seems to scale with voltage better than BH, but it needs around 3.1v to to get down to 2-2-2 to begin with. being a smaller process size, it's not as safe to pump CH dies as much voltage as BH. i wouldn't go over 3.4v for 24/7

Samsung TCCD/TCC5:
been around for a little while. had.. a cult like following for a while, 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. the downside is that it needs high timings to get there. expect to have to drop down to 2.5-4-4 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. with newer tccd/tcc5, it seems that more than 2.8v will hurt then after prolonged periods of time, while the older chips can take a bit more, and actually scale really well at cas2 with lots of voltage, but die really fast if you do that.

Micron 5b G:
this stuff is a mix between BH-5 and TCCD. with properly binned sticks, it can do 2-2-2 timings up to a moderate speed (typically 220-225mhz without going nuts with voltage). the sweet spot is usually with 2.5-2-2; 250mhz at 2.7-2.9v and 2.5-2-2 seems typical with 5b G, with more possible with additional voltage. also scales with timings too, though not as well as tccd does, with 3-3-3 being best for hitting highest mhz (around 280-310 usually) 5b G can take 3.1-3.3v pretty reliably when properly cooled, though it will cut into it's lifespan a bit.
if you get it in value ram, simply subtract ~10-40mhz from the above numbers

Micron 5b D
very very similar to 5b G, but being a smaller process (110nm), it doesn't like more than ~2.9-3v in most cases.
 
Meh, tedious way but still a great guide... Even if it is incomplete, i suggest you sticky this to help ppl tweaking the memory :D
 
That's only for 512MB sticks though...here are the major players in the 1GB stick category. :)

Samsung UCCC
Typically low-end 2GB sets will have UCCC. Though it is the most "value-oriented" of the 1GB sticks, proper binning can get you 250MHz 3-4-4-8 or 3-4-3-8. Typically top out around 270-280MHz, though sticks have been recorded at 300MHz. OCZ and G.Skill have a wide variety of sticks with these chips. Other manufacturers known to use them are Corsair, Mushkin, Teamgroup, and Crucial.

Infineon CE-5/CE-6
These would be the BH series of 1GB sticks, minus the high voltage. Though they are usually limited to around 260-270MHz, they make up for that with low timings. Infineon chips are usually binned to 250MHz 3-3-2, which is not half-bad at all. Usually they will go up to 260MHz 3-3-2, then you'll have to loosen to 3-3-3. Manufacturers known to use Infineon are OCZ, G.Skill, Mushkin, and Teamgroup.

Micron 5b-G
Like their 512MB counterparts, the higher-density Micron chips are a balance of tight timings and high speeds. They are currently binned [by manufacturers] to 250MHz 3-3-3-8. But, that can usually be lowered to 3-3-2 or 2.5-3-3. The 5b-G tends to get hot, so active cooling is strongly advised. These chips are among the best overclockers, with several sticks recorded at 300MHz or higher. The only current manufacturers selling these sticks are Teamgroup and OCZ.
 
From a complete oc'ing noob, that was VERY informative and written at a level that everyone can understand. Bravo.

I still do have one question, though. Although I know this is kinda subjective, I just want a ballpark figure, or even just opinions.

G. Skill Extreme DDR500 at 200MHz at recc. 3-4-4-8

vs

OCZ DDR400 Platinum at 200MHz at recc. 2-3-2-5

OCZ will be faster due to tighter timings, but by how much?
 
Down said:
From a complete oc'ing noob, that was VERY informative and written at a level that everyone can understand. Bravo.

I still do have one question, though. Although I know this is kinda subjective, I just want a ballpark figure, or even just opinions.

G. Skill Extreme DDR500 at 200MHz at recc. 3-4-4-8

vs

OCZ DDR400 Platinum at 200MHz at recc. 2-3-2-5

OCZ will be faster due to tighter timings, but by how much?
Click to expand...

Not necessarily true. You have to remember that the G.Skill is 25% faster, if at higher timings. I would say they will be close, but since the Athlon 64's on-die memory controller severely reduces any hits from higher timings, and prefers high bandwidth, the G.Skill should be a tad faster.
 
Bona Fide said:
That's only for 512MB sticks though...here are the major players in the 1GB stick category. :)
Click to expand...
5b G isn't a 64mb IC, 5b D and 5b F are.. well can be rather. ;)

that was actually originally typed up a while ago.. i have a whole bunch of IC's to add.. not only those, but some hynix and other oddities like that

i've also been working on something that might surprise a few people on how much timings matter vs mhz.. it's got a while till it's ready for public consumption though :p
 
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