How high can bh-5 sticks go?

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GonzoP

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OK current rig is in sig.
Now with the recent massive price drops I'm running out of excuses not to upgrade. Clearly, I could pick up a decent A64 [probably the 3700+] or x2 [probably the 3800+] for $100-150, mobo probably another $100 or so. I'd have to wrestle around on the video card issue but even if I capped myself at $150-200 there I'd be inline for a semi-decent card like a 7600gt or x1800gto.
My question here regards my current memory. I have hyper-x pc3000. The sticks however are the imfamous bh-5 variety. In my four year old kt333 mobo [Epox 8K3A] they can run 220FSB/440DDR at 2-2-2-5-1T timings on 3v. Now obviously, if I made this upgrade I'd be wanting/needing to reach speeds over 250FSB. Can the bh-5 approach those kids of speeds with enough voltage and more relaxed timings; something in the 3-4-4-8 2T neighborhood or whatever the mobo would allow?
Or do I have to bit the bullet on new ram as well? The sticks above are just 512 sticks so I only have 1GB versus the 2GB that seems to becoming standard.
 
GonzoP said:
OK current rig is in sig.
Now with the recent massive price drops I'm running out of excuses not to upgrade. Clearly, I could pick up a decent A64 [probably the 3700+] or x2 [probably the 3800+] for $100-150, mobo probably another $100 or so. I'd have to wrestle around on the video card issue but even if I capped myself at $150-200 there I'd be inline for a semi-decent card like a 7600gt or x1800gto.
My question here regards my current memory. I have hyper-x pc3000. The sticks however are the imfamous bh-5 variety. In my four year old kt333 mobo [Epox 8K3A] they can run 220FSB/440DDR at 2-2-2-5-1T timings on 3v. Now obviously, if I made this upgrade I'd be wanting/needing to reach speeds over 250FSB. Can the bh-5 approach those kids of speeds with enough voltage and more relaxed timings; something in the 3-4-4-8 2T neighborhood or whatever the mobo would allow?
Or do I have to bit the bullet on new ram as well? The sticks above are just 512 sticks so I only have 1GB versus the 2GB that seems to becoming standard.
Click to expand...
bh-5 are meant for tight timings, 3-4-4-8 isn't very typical for bh5 sticks...i think i remember seeing over by XS some peopel getting BH5 around 240 or 250 at 2-2-2 with some heavy duty voltage. remember that active cooling is a MUST for anything 3.0v and over - tho with most ballistix chips active cooling at even stock is popular -_-. but then again, you don't really NEED to reach speeds of over 250fsb - a64's can run dividers without taking a noticeable performance hit ;)
edit:
yeah 2gb is becoming standard but most people use 2gb for high end games (bf2, oblivion, cod2) and other memory intensive apps. if 1 gig of ram has served you well as hasn't been a problem, it should be fine now.
 
Every mobo varies. My bh-5 refuses to go far beyond 260 on one board yet comes close to 280 on another. IIRC BH-5 refuses to do CL3 as well, so it's either CL2 or CL2.5. So yeah 240-250 at 2-2-2-5 would IMO be very likely. Crank up those volts, I hear bh-5 can take up to 3.6, though high vdimm has been rumored to kill the a64 cpu itself.
 
bh-5 actually won't boot at cas3 ;)

and usually ~260-285mhz at 3.4-3.7v is typical on a decent board, at 2-2-2 of course. looser just doesn't help
 
Thanks guys that's good info for me. So it seems like 240-250 should be somewhat to fairly likely on a decent OCers board. Man that makes it even tougher not to upgrade now.

Also like I said on my kt333 right now I cannot seem to go higher than 220 without pretty massive system problems. Is that mostly because at those speeds my pci bus is 44Mhz and agp is 88Mhz? For instance I used to 219x12 but had all those aforementioned problem now I use 210x12.5 trouble free.
 
BH-5 varies. My CH-5 maxes out at under 240, 4v, 2-3-2-6, while I've seen some BH-5 max out above 300 at CAS1.5.
 
dont mean to hijack the thread here but would it make more sense to get a 2gb kit with tight timings or higher frequency?

and how much difference in performance is there between cas2 and cas3?
 
depends on what you do with your system... ;)

about 1-2% in most cases. rarely more.
 
Yea, not a Huge difference unless you competitivly benchmark. Not to mention a lot of Winbond won't boot at CAS3.
 
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