more Ram or Raptor?

[emorphien]

Originally posted by lopoetve
I no longer TOUCH anything less than Crucial. Ever.

I pretty much have traditionally considered Crucial to be the gold standard of RAM as far as stability goes, although there are choices that offer higher performance. I don't know much about Crucial's high end RAM.

Most users don't need high performing/premium RAM, and basic Crucial, Corsair, etc. are excellent choices where it just has to work and the best performance isn't so much the issue. Some of us [H]arder users prefer faster ram with lower latencies however. Globally I'd say people using performance ram (such as many of us on this forum) are certainly less common than those with standard (but good quality) ram.

 

[souja9]

Originally posted by lopoetve


http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/xms/

http://www.amdmb.com/article-display.php?ArticleID=177&PageID=3

Ah, here we go some links....

The articles are very informative and well done. A couple of things. While they do show some perforance gains in synthetic benchmarks, there are no real world tests save one.. Quake. And the results pretty much back up what the other comparison shows: there is no real measureable difference.

Here are the results from the three Quake tests (just the numbers for simplicity):
Test 1 - Brand A, 259.6 fps; Brand B, 259.4; Brand C, 261.2 (0.7% difference from best to worst)
Test 2 - Brand A, 327.3 fps; Brand A (OC) 332.6 fps; Brand B, 324.3; Brand C, 322.5 (3.0% difference from overclocked best to worst)

Is this 3% difference in Quake worth it? And yes that is a question each of us has to answer on our own, but again I wish they would give more info on real world impact.

Also, whats up with the way tweaknews does their graphs? Using graphs that do not start with baseline of 0 is very misleading. They show a 1% difference with a bar that is less than HALF the size?

On the amdb site, the 8-10% sandra improvements are decent. I would however like to see that translated real world performance (games, application benchmarks, etc.).

Simply put, you're on an enthusiast board (and welcome), and here, we can't use the value crap. It just won't hold up to overclocking, extreme timings, and the work that we put it through.

Saying you "can't use" and saying small speed decrease are very different things. It's not as black and white as you think. If someone snuck in your house and replaced the memory that is currently in your system with some valueram, I'm pretty sure you will never notice.

I'm here on this discussion board to... discuss, thank you very much. Sorry for the many replies, guys, but this current discussion is very interesting to me.

 

[souja9]

Originally posted by lopoetve
Hey, buddy, Dell uses Crucial

Oh, and Crucial and Kingston both make RAM for Laptops, and the SODIMMS are constructed to the same standards that the high end stuff is made of.

Care to try again?

Precisely, exactly what the article I was referring to was testing. I've already pointed that out a few times in my posts. Generic (Crucial, Samsung in the article) NOT bottom-of-barrel versus the enthusiast stuff.

I did not write the article in gamepc nor have I ever ordered anything from them. It just made a lot of sense to me.

 

[emorphien]

 

[lopoetve]

Originally posted by souja9
Ah, here we go some links....

The articles are very informative and well done. A couple of things. While they do show some perforance gains in synthetic benchmarks, there are no real world tests save one.. Quake. And the results pretty much back up what the other comparison shows: there is no real measureable difference.

Here are the results from the three Quake tests (just the numbers for simplicity):
Test 1 - Brand A, 259.6 fps; Brand B, 259.4; Brand C, 261.2 (0.7% difference from best to worst)
Test 2 - Brand A, 327.3 fps; Brand A (OC) 332.6 fps; Brand B, 324.3; Brand C, 322.5 (3.0% difference from overclocked best to worst)

Is this 3% difference in Quake worth it? And yes that is a question each of us has to answer on our own, but again I wish they would give more info on real world impact.

Also, whats up with the way tweaknews does their graphs? Using graphs that do not start with baseline of 0 is very misleading. They show a 1% difference with a bar that is less than HALF the size?

On the amdb site, the 8-10% sandra improvements are decent. I would however like to see that translated real world performance (games, application benchmarks, etc.).



Saying you "can't use" and saying small speed decrease are very different things. It's not as black and white as you think. If someone snuck in your house and replaced the memory that is currently in your system with some valueram, I'm pretty sure you will never notice.

I'm here on this discussion board to... discuss, thank you very much. Sorry for the many replies, guys, but this current discussion is very interesting to me.

Yes, I'd notice, because with value ram I wouldn't boot (for the love of God, READ what I said before). Nor would it be stable even if you COULD get it to boot. And, since I'm constantly working to eke every last bit out of my system, it would be slower, and I would notice. Most of us pay a LOT of attention to what our system can do. We notice real fast if there is a 5% dropoff that we can't account for.

For many of us, we're pushing the absolute extreme on timings, overclocks, and voltages. Value ram will not hold up under that kind of stress (as AMDMB shows). Your value ram DOES NOT WORK.

Who cares how TWN does their graphs. Unlike your site, they provide background info on the test, and show exactly how it was done. Oh, and the scale was to make the difference more easily visable.

Oh, and I'm saying you "CANNOT USE" Value Ram in most overclocked systems. Try using it on an 865/875 board (this is the THIRD time I've brought this up). You WILL NOT BOOT. Overclocking on those systems requires RAM that meets a VERY strict quality level, namely BH-5 chips, ie: Mushkin Level 2 Black. My Nforce 2, running as it is, requires about the same, but I got it stable on XMS3200C2. Stability, or no stability. IT's a choice.

I choose stability. You can choose as you will. I'm tired of replacing ram in computers to get them to stop crashing, I use the right stuff from the start. Maybe it does cost more, but you know what? I don't ever have to worry about the ram being the cause of the problems. You do.

 

[lopoetve]

Originally posted by souja9
Precisely, exactly what the article I was referring to was testing. I've already pointed that out a few times in my posts. Generic (Crucial, Samsung in the article) NOT bottom-of-barrel versus the enthusiast stuff.

I did not write the article in gamepc nor have I ever ordered anything from them. It just made a lot of sense to me.

Crucial is not generic, it's stability ram (low timings, 6 layer PCB, rated chips). Samsung is generic (which your site sells for a 50% markup). Try again.

 

[souja9]

Originally posted by lopoetve
Crucial is not generic, it's stability ram (low timings, 6 layer PCB, rated chips). Samsung is generic (which your site sells for a 50% markup). Try again.

Read again:

Question Four : Are the more expensive "gaming" DDR modules worth the extra money?
Ah, the question of the hour. We often get asked why Kingston and Corsair modules are so much more expensive compared to "generic" Samsung / Crucial memory modules

 

[souja9]

Change the FSB/DRAM ratio on the nforce2 board and you can easily get your machine to boot.

Originally posted by lopoetve

Who cares how TWN does their graphs. Unlike your site, they provide background info on the test, and show exactly how it was done. Oh, and the scale was to make the difference more easily visable.

Umm, why are you defending this? I guess you aren't as hardcore as you say.

Man I just looked again at the machines you have. All this talk about bleeding edge and performance, why are you wasting you time reading articles on blinking RAM? Go spend $85 dollars and buy a Barton chip and get your system up to speed. My slowest of 3 boxes ($350 Dell p4 2.4 800mhz fsb w/HT ) can run circles around your "heavily tweaked" machine.

 

[lopoetve]

Originally posted by souja9
Read again:

Question Four : Are the more expensive "gaming" DDR modules worth the extra money?
Ah, the question of the hour. We often get asked why Kingston and Corsair modules are so much more expensive compared to "generic" Samsung / Crucial memory modules

And again, read the tweaknews OPENING HEADING.

 

[lopoetve]

Originally posted by souja9
Change the FSB/DRAM ratio on the nforce2 board and you can easily get your machine to boot.



Umm, why are you defending this? I guess you aren't as hardcore as you say.

Man I just looked again at the machines you have. All this talk about bleeding edge and performance, why are you wasting you time reading articles on blinking RAM? Go spend $85 dollars and buy a Barton chip and get your system up to speed. My slowest of 3 boxes ($350 Dell p4 2.4 800mhz fsb w/HT ) can run circles around your "heavily tweaked" machine.

Right. If you had a clue about tweaking and modifying AMD systems, you'd know that running the AMD chips async to the memory results in a large performace loss. So yeah, I'm "heavily tweaked". I researched my equipment before I used it I at least appear to have a clue about what I'm doing.

Oh, and my 1700+ @ 2.1ghz and 9800 Pro will eat your dell alive, and is PLENTY up to speed (and I at least did the work myself, rather than letting a large company do it for me). I don't know what systems you think I have, but I'll take your pitiful pre-configured Dell on any time.

Read, learn, understand. You're wrong, and have been proven so by the experience of the members of this board time and time again. You are in the wrong place, and have no right lecturing people who do their OWN research and work, when you use something as pointless as a preconfigured Dell. Unless you have something valid to post from now on, I'm going to ignore you, as many of the people on this forum will, as I don't like getting into pointless arguments with people that refuse to look at anything other than their blind, misconcieved pipe-dreams. I'm more than happy to point out the truth of your statements as well, if needed.

 

[souja9]

It's your money and you can spend it however you want.

But, please do me a favor and get off the 'board police' schtick. I knew from the very start by the number of your posts that you would prove to be the local Barney Fife type. I know I'm being a jerk by entertaining you... forgive me for indulging myself a bit.

I know you want to have the fastest system possible. But please use a little bit of sensibility when you make recommendations. I have a hunch that most people here are more interested in "bang for the buck" rather than the "fastest possible", otherwise we'd all be recommending A64-FX51's and P4EE's. Not everyone (including you it seems) has $3000 to spend on an elite system. That mean's tradeoffs as not everything is black and white. And that is the reason why there is a "discussion" in boards such as these.

 

[Ben-mod]

If you're looking for good bang for the buck RAM, I use Kingmax 3500, its only about 73 dollars per 512 stick. Thats a pretty good deal.

 

[lopoetve]

Originally posted by souja9
It's your money and you can spend it however you want.

But, please do me a favor and get off the 'board police' schtick. I knew from the very start by the number of your posts that you would prove to be the local Barney Fife type. I know I'm being a jerk by entertaining you... forgive me for indulging myself a bit.

I know you want to have the fastest system possible. But please use a little bit of sensibility when you make recommendations. I have a hunch that most people here are more interested in "bang for the buck" rather than the "fastest possible", otherwise we'd all be recommending A64-FX51's and P4EE's. Not everyone (including you it seems) has $3000 to spend on an elite system. That mean's tradeoffs as not everything is black and white. And that is the reason why there is a "discussion" in boards such as these.

Indeed, it is, and I don't recomment the EE or FX for that reason...

Most of my posts come from the Cars forum, where there were a great deal of long threads, and from when GenMay was here, which was before your time. You new people don't realize that this used to be a GENERAL forum, for anything. 5th largest in the world, for that matter IIRC.

And while I do believe in saving money, there are some things where you cannot skimp, as the very stability of your system relys on it. RAM is one of those things. There are reasons that Dell uses Crucial, and not generic. There is no gray area in ram, it's either good, or bad. Speed is relative, but it is either GOOD (and stable), or BAD (in which case you're back here, again, asking for help on stability).

My points have been proven time and time again. If you would care to try and counter them, you may give it your best. If you wish to insult my computers, my knowledge, or my history here (including, it appears, things you don't have a CLUE about again) some more, be my guest. It is only your own reputation that you are ruining.

If you're going to continue to spread complete bull that has no foundation, you'll just be placed on ignore. It's impossible to discuss things with people who refuse to look at anything new, or realize that their information came from a misinformed source.

If someone tells you pigs can fly, and 30 other people say "no, I've thrown one, it doesn't", do you believe the one? Or do you believe the people that have done the tests, documented it, and know?

 

[lopoetve]

Originally posted by Ben-mod
If you're looking for good bang for the buck RAM, I use Kingmax 3500, its only about 73 dollars per 512 stick. Thats a pretty good deal.

I've heard good and bad about kingmax. I might try it on a non overclocked system, but there have been no professional reviews that I have seen yet.