Striker Extreme Voltage Advice

I spoke too soon. I ended up with an error after 2 hours. I've tried running higher and lower voltages than 2.275 but that seems to be the best performance I've got so far.. I'm going to play with my timings to see if I can get the system stable.

I've read the the 6400C3DF's use Micron ICs whereas the 6400C4's use Promos. That seems to make sense to me as the timings in the C3DFs are far better than the C4's (hence the name)..

It doesn't make me feel any better that it isn't working though. I'm going to keep trying a couple of different things and I will let you know how I go.
 
Ok, for those of you interested, I currently have my RAM running at 5-5-5-18-2T which is the AUTO (motherboard detected) timings of these modules, not their EPP advertised timings. I thought I'd go with the safest option and see if that worked just to test out that the dimms were actually compatible and I wasn't running around in circles. Just so you know, when I have 2GBs in the board, it correclty adjusts my timings to 3-4-3-9-2T on AUTO settings; when I have 4GB in, it likes to slow things down a little.

I've run Prime95 on all 4 cores for 2 hours and it's rock solid! I understand that it is not a massive amount of time to be testing, but it at least alludes to the fact that 4GB Corsair memory is most likely possible with this board. I've thrown my other 8800GTX in there and bumped my multiplier on my quad to 11 so I'm rockin out with 4GB, SLI and 2.96Ghz Quad Core. I'll think about increasing my FSB when I get a chance to sit down and test everything properly.

I want to reduce my timings back to 3-4-3-9-2T or something closer to that than the settings I have at the moment, but again, I've run out of time to test things tonight. Part of me believes this might not be possible until ASUS brings out more BIOS updates. I'm fairly happy with things the way they are at the moment; and I don't mind waiting for more updates.

Hope this helps...
 
I continued my testing with the 2 different pairs of OCZ ram.

I upped to 1600fsb/800fsb 5-5-5-15 2T 2.2 volts. I took out the CPU as limiting factor with 7X multiplier...

It booted fine in windows, ran superpi worked fine till 8mb, then it gave me an error in 16m, after 5 posts... ran directly afterwards Orthos prime crashed within 1minute... :mad:

went back into bios, lowered 1600/667 same timings ( I did this to try the suggestion in the mail from ramguy). Running Superpi 32m now done without an issue. A friend of mine is running the same test on an EVGA (24 bios) on Vista (me WinXP Pro) with Gskill PC6400 4-4-4-12 black heatspreader ram and he too has issues to get it stable at 1600/800... grrr

After this run gonna up the cpu to the full 3600mhz ( 9x) hopefully it wil be stable again then... if it does this with OCZ , GSKill and Corsair ram it's in the chipset (again lol) weird thing is the OCZ boots fine everytime into windows...

K tried some different setting ( sticked with my voltages for 1600/1066) always reduced FSB with 25mhz to find it faster...

1500/800 no go orthos made windows reboot
1400/800 no go survived little longer in orthos 1 min wooho
1300/800 no go 3 mins then lockup
1200/800 works mmmmmm
 
Ok so looks like we may have some progress ahead!

...So I heard from my motherboard seller yesterday and today. He says he has tested the motherboard and RAM with no luck, he can't get 4GB to work (I think he also tried OCZ). So, he has put in for an RA, they are going to test the board and get back to me so hopefully it wont be too long!

ARROW!!!

RE: "Redbeard sent me back a PM. Corsair and Asus are working on the problem; right now there doing testing to identify the problem." That's awesome news!!! Hopefully we will have a 'solution' to their problem soon, you would have expected it sooner though being a very common product to combine! It worries me if they are trying to identify the problem! :)

I'll let you know how my motherboard return goes guys.
 
I hope it brings something, only thing Asus and Corsair can do is to bring it to life, meaning you can get 4gigs to work but I realy doubt you can overclock over 300mhz same prob I pointed out wth 4gigs. My friend ( EVGA) is also stuck around 315fsb. It all goes together , if you run stock FSB you can get it to work at 1066 prolly, if you overclock the stress on the memory controller get's in the way...

Eagerly awaiting a solution ....
 
I know this is really lame but the only thing Im interested in RIGHT NOW is no over clock, standard settings 800Mhz RAM in 4GB config. I will worry about over clocking to keep up with newer machines a year or so down the track. straight up though I am very happy with Quad core performance at 2.66Ghz / per core.

Eventually if we can get 1066MHz performance in 4gb config, even better, please let me know if anyone does!!! Is this a bios thing also the speed at which it runs stably in such large ram configs?

Dont hate me cause I dont overclock :) he he he YET...
 
Domenick said:
Is this a bios thing also the speed at which it runs stably in such large ram configs?
Click to expand...
What do you mean by this exactly?

Domenick I've got 800Mhz running stable using the QX6700 now. :p

At first the RAM voltage was the issue. I found the most stable RAM voltage I could find, then relaxed my timings because no safe voltage was working. This helped a lot, but I saw that my Vcore was fluctuating a little so I took it off AUTO and set it at a value I knew was stable (1.31875V in this case). I'm completely stable now FINALLY. At this point I don't know if it was the Vcore fluctuating that was giving me issues or the RAM timings. I have a sneaking suspicion it was the Vcore.

The only overclocking I've done is increase the QX6700 multiplier to 11 so it has nothing to do with the RAM or FSB. I've tested these settings at stock and I know they work as well though.

Corsair 6400C3DF = Gold... ;)
 
Sorry WorthIT,

I was meaning is the bios the issue with running our ram at 800Mhz speeds with 4gb?
I know 800Mhz is ok with 2GB but it wasn't with 4GB, people had to go back down to 667MHZ. Did 1002 fix this issue and also can you run RAM at 1066mhz with 4gb on this board now?

What speed is your processor running at now with Multiplier 11? I thought that was default... man I need to read up more, please pardon my stupidity :) I'm still a learner with how frequencies and voltages work with each other to produce faster systems :)

Also are you now running you Corsair 6400C3DF in 4GB, how different is the performance to 6400C4? I know it's latency is better but how does that result in real world applications do you know?
 
Domenick said:
I was meaning is the bios the issue with running our ram at 800Mhz speeds with 4gb?
I know 800Mhz is ok with 2GB but it wasn't with 4GB, people had to go back down to 667MHZ. Did 1002 fix this issue and also can you run RAM at 1066mhz with 4gb on this board now?
Click to expand...
I believe the BIOS is the issue, and as Arrow said, Asus and Corsair sound like they are working to fix the problem. I don't know if 1002 fixed the problem because I've only ever used the 1002 BIOS. I had to wait 2 months to get my motherboard, so I've only just put my computer together. I do have 4GB running at 800Mhz now without a problem. I'm unsure as to whether you can run 1066MHz in a 4GB configuration as I don't have any of that type of RAM, and I haven't heard of anyone else doing it sorry..

I would assume it is possible because the 6400C3Ds, 8500C5Ds and 8888C4DFs use the same chips in manufacturing (The 'Micron' ICs - Not the 'Promos' ICs).

The 6400C4s use different chips when they manufacture the modules. Again, don't quote me on this, I'm not a RAM expert at all, but I read that from the various forums around the place.

Domenick said:
What speed is your processor running at now with Multiplier 11? I thought that was default... man I need to read up more, please pardon my stupidity :) I'm still a learner with how frequencies and voltages work with each other to produce faster systems :)
Click to expand...
My processor is at 2.93GHz now. Stock setting for the QX6700 is a multiplier of 10 so 2.66GHz.

Basic formula (I apologize if you know this already):
CPU Multiplier (11) x FSB(266MHz) = 2.93GHz @ 1066MHz FSB [266 x 4(QDR)]

Domenick said:
Also are you now running you Corsair 6400C3DF in 4GB, how different is the performance to 6400C4? I know it's latency is better but how does that result in real world applications do you know?
Click to expand...
Yes, I am running it in 4GB at 800MHz. At this point in time, I have had to run the RAM at 5-5-5-18-2T timings instead of the rated 3-4-3-9-2T to get things stable. As I said before though; I am looking to decrease the timings back to their original speed, but I needed to have a stable base to work from. I have that now.

Again, I can't really tell you the real world benefits between the 6400C4 and the 6400C3 because I haven't tested both side by side. I went for the C3DF dominator modules with the fan because I knew they used better IC chips in the manufacturing and I thought I might be able to overclock them better in the end. I'm getting there, but it takes time.

I hope this helps. I know it can be daunting. I knew nothing about overclocking or any of this stuff two months ago..
 
Hi guys!

I'm new to this forum, but I just wanted to thank everyone for thrashing out this Striker / RAM issue out, and posting their most stable settings.

I've bought what appears to be a very similar system to worthIT:

Intel Quad-Core 2 Extreme QX6700
Asus Striker Extreme
4x1GB Corsair Dominator XMS2 6400C4D 800MHz
EVGA 8800GTX ACS3 GFX Card
Enermax Galaxy EGA1000EWL PSU
Zalman CNPS9700NT Aero Flower Heatsink

I haven't built this system yet as I'm having to buy a bigger case to fit the PSU in! I think I'm going to go for the CoolerMaster Stacker 830 Evolution, unless anyone can give me reasons not to!

But after reading this thread, I don't mind admitting, I am absolutely kacking myself now! I am very worried about getting this rig up and running, this will be first system I've built from scratch. I've installed all the usual before, PSUs / RAM / GFX cards / drives etc. But never a CPU / fan / motherboard.

At this point I'm not going to risk overclocking this board, I just want to have it working with 4GB RAM, with as near as factory settings for stability as I can!!!

I shall be reading this thread very closely!!!!

:)

Cheers
Matt
 
MattGorner said:
At this point I'm not going to risk overclocking this board, I just want to have it working with 4GB RAM, with as near as factory settings for stability as I can!!!
Click to expand...
The phrases "...factory settings for stability..." and "Asus Striker Extreme" shouldn't really be used in the same sentence. Haha...

If it'll help Matt, I'll put all my BIOS settings up here for you to check out. I'll have to do it when I get home from work though.

Good luck with the build, and before you put it together - 1 piece of advice:- Make sure you know where you are connecting everything (fans and power connectors) and have as much connected as you can before you put your motherboard and cards in your case. I took my motherboard out at least 5 times and had to mess around with so many fan connections cause all the big components get in your way when you are dealing with the 9700 and 2 x 8800GTXs. - Either that or get some long pliers.
 
worthIT said:
The phrases "...factory settings for stability..." and "Asus Striker Extreme" shouldn't really be used in the same sentence. Haha...
Click to expand...

That's why I cautiously said 'near as factory settings' !!! ;)

worthIT said:
If it'll help Matt, I'll put all my BIOS settings up here for you to check out. I'll have to do it when I get home from work though.
Click to expand...

Thanks worthIT, that would be extremely helpful, I'm totally new to this overclocking business, although the thought of being able to squeeze more speed out of this rig for rendering in LightWave3D is very tempting!

worthIT said:
Good luck with the build, and before you put it together - 1 piece of advice:- Make sure you know where you are connecting everything (fans and power connectors) and have as much connected as you can before you put your motherboard and cards in your case.
Click to expand...

Good advice, I intend to read the manuals cover to cover before I touch anything! I'm also going to do a simulated run checking off every connector to make sure I don't miss anything! This little lot cost me £1,950 (not including the case I'm about to buy) the last thing I want to do is fry it!

I will certainly post my progress when I come to build this, *hopefully* if all goes well I'd like to at least try and help anyone else in my position!

Cheers
Matt
 
Hey WorthIT, thank you so much for your post for "voltages and frequencies for beginners 101" :) That's awesome. I may just have to bump up my QX6700 a notch for my rendering :)


Wish I had gone the CAS3's not the CAS4's now! Daaarrrrrrrggggg :)
 
where is this post called "voltages and frequencies for beginners 101" ? ...

also WorthIT it might be worth it (a pun! ;D) to mention that i also couldn't get my QX6700 to post at 1300 fsb... however 1333 fsb worked flawlessly. o_O

from testing with my striker, qx6700 and corsaid dominator 8500C5D's i managed to determine that the 3 most stable FSB's for my CPU were:

1066, 1200 and 1333.

now for some strange reason, i can't for the life of me seem to get my machine to post at anything over 1333... i have no idea how all these people are getting their machines to run at 1600fsb! o_O also similarly, i haven't been able to get this chip to stay stable at anything over 3500mhz nomatter what fsb i'm running. :/

i'm going to start an overclocking data collection thread that i'd like everybody with a striker extreme (using 1002 bios) to post to, i'll throw all the information into a table and host it for all to see, so hopefully we can have something concrete that we can all work with.

Click here to view thread: Striker Extreme Overclocking - Data Collection
 
MattGorner said:
But after reading this thread, I don't mind admitting, I am absolutely kacking myself now! I am very worried about getting this rig up and running, this will be first system I've built from scratch. I've installed all the usual before, PSUs / RAM / GFX cards / drives etc. But never a CPU / fan / motherboard.

At this point I'm not going to risk overclocking this board, I just want to have it working with 4GB RAM, with as near as factory settings for stability as I can!!!
Click to expand...

Right now, I wouldn't bother trying to put in all four sticks at once. What I would do is flash to 1002, put one pair in and test the hell out of it (memtest86, Orthos/SP2004/Prime95) for a couple of days, and then swap in the other pair and do the same. Hopefully we'll have a fix for the 4x1 issue in the next BIOS (or two), and you'll know your RAM is ready to go.

Drazek said:
where is this post called "voltages and frequencies for beginners 101" ? ...

also WorthIT it might be worth it (a pun! ;D) to mention that i also couldn't get my QX6700 to post at 1300 fsb... however 1333 fsb worked flawlessly. o_O

from testing with my striker, qx6700 and corsaid dominator 8500C5D's i managed to determine that the 3 most stable FSB's for my CPU were:

1066, 1200 and 1333.

now for some strange reason, i can't for the life of me seem to get my machine to post at anything over 1333... i have no idea how all these people are getting their machines to run at 1600fsb! o_O also similarly, i haven't been able to get this chip to stay stable at anything over 3500mhz nomatter what fsb i'm running. :/
Click to expand...

Well, there are some known issues with overclocking the 680i chipset with quad core. I'm sure once Nvidia works it out on the reference boards, Asus will have a BIOS fix soon after.
 
No problem Domenick... :) I'm sure you'd be able to get your C4 RAM working on these boards, but you'll probably have to work for it. I spent at least 15 hours of testing just to get my 4GB of C3 working. Given my past experience, you'll probably get everything working and as soon as you do, Asus will release a BIOS that fixes all your problems automatically... Haha..

Drazek, I love your idea and I'll upload my BIOS settings as soon as I get more than 2 minutes to myself. You might want to consider asking people to list their RAM and the amount they have installed considering this seems to be a big issue with these boards at the moment.. Just a suggestion.

As Arrow mentioned, there are some serious ceilings when it comes to overclocking the Quad cores in this chipset. I do remember reading somewhere though, that this board seems to absolutely love strong dividers. That seems to be the case if you are getting the most stable clocks at 1066, 1200 and 1333. Have you tried 1466 FSB...? and are you running your memory at linked or unlinked? I want to start pushing my FSB soon too...
 
cheers WorthIT,

I've updated the origional post to include RAM Manufacturer and RAM Amount Installed.

;D
 
Ok I see so many people desperately trying to get their Stryker to work while mine is still sitting in its box. I have since replaced it with a BFG reference board. I am now as my sig says reaching 3.63 , actually 3.64 now ghz out of a E6700.

I simply would really like to know if anyone can run this board at that speed with the 1002 bios stable.

Here is the test and its not orthos or other benchmarking app its a game:

I want to know if you can run Rainbow Six Vegas perfectly for a long time. No stuttering, lockups, low FPS

Why RS Vegas? you ask? because its CPU recommended requirement is a 3.5ghz processor. The game runs like crap with speeds in the 3.2ghz area even with SLI 8800 GTXs

Once you get to 3.5 or over the game runs great at 1600x1200.

thanks
 
lol Crashman you don't seem to stop to surprise me, 3500mhz will prolly be for an AMD64 CPU or normal Intel not referring to Core2 or AMD X2 at 3500mhz which infact is not available unless you overclock your CPU. But what you experienced might be true , I had this with previous overcloked GFX cards, upping or lowering sometimes 5-10mhz made some games feel smoother and less choppy...

Can you confirm you are running those dominators at 1066mhz speeds at 4gigs
what is your multi 10x or 9X ? ram speed ?
 
I am making this clear to anyone reading. I am no expert at overclocking but I do no how to read so I read that by decrementing my multiplier by 1 I would be able to get more out of my memory , FSB, to up the core clock. That is what I did

I put my multiplier on 9. I used an unlinked setting and I was able to put the FSB setting at 1455. This gives me in windows a CPU clock speed of 3.64 ghz. That is what I know. The changes in voltage I assume are being done automatically.

You are right about an overall reduced voltage displayed at least by the Asus Styker bios versions. I said before in a thread that my Vcore was like 11.6 volts and BFG was somewhat alarmed by that but said it was in the usable range.

With The BFG 680i board the Vcore is right on 12 volts or 12.1volts.

I am not sure what and where the word drooop came from could you explain that?
 
Crash I don't see how you get 3.63 ghz with FSB at 1455 with 9 multi, you would be more around 3.3ghz then 3.63ghz which program do you use to read out those speeds. Only CPU-Z reads out correctly, orthos and coretemp eg read the speeds out wrongly due to the fact you use a lower multi... this also could explain why you can run 4 gigs of dominator ram and some users can't ...

Well my Striker board fluctuates at 11.78 - 11.81 at the 12 volt rail, even the 850 Galaxy changed zero there.
 
Leeghoofd, crash has a little "banned" symbol next to his name now so I don't know if we will be hearing from him anymore..

My 12V stays at 11.79... Isn't that a little low? I don't know whether to be worried about it or not. I've now put together 3 machines with almost the exact specs as mine, (the only difference was a few HDDs) and they've all read about 11.80 on that rail with the Thermaltake toughpower 850W..
 
worthIT said:
My 12V stays at 11.79... Isn't that a little low? I don't know whether to be worried about it or not. I've now put together 3 machines with almost the exact specs as mine, (the only difference was a few HDDs) and they've all read about 11.80 on that rail with the Thermaltake toughpower 850W..
Click to expand...

It's still within 5%, so I'd say your good. If it goes down to 11.5, or 11.3 (which is 95%), then I'd worry.
 
I was wondering if anybody out there could give me a some what safe overclocking profile to try out?
I am not really looking to push it, something in the range of 3 ghz would be cool.

My setup:

Bios 1002

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 Conroe 2.66GHz

ASUS Striker Extreme LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX

CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Asus 8800gtx

Antec NeoPower NeoHE 550 ATX12V 550W

air cooled, Thermaltake MiniTyp 90

Vista Ultimate

If there is any other info I should give let me know?

Thanks
 
AI Tuning: Manual
Nvidia GPU Ex: Disabled
LinkBoost: Disabled

FSB - Memory Clock Mode: Unlinked
x FSB - Memory Raio: N/A
FSB (QDR), Mhz: 1200 (means 300FSB)
Actual FSB (QDR), Mhz: 1200
MEM (DDR), Mhz: 800 (means 333mhz speeds)
Actual MEM (DDR), Mhz: 800

Vcore Voltage:1.4250
Memory Voltage: 2.2
1.2v HT Voltage: 1.35
NB Core Voltage: 1.40
SB Core Voltage: 1.5
CPU VTT Voltage: 1.35
DDRII Controller Ref Voltage:auto
DDRII Channel A Ref Voltage:auto
DDRII Channel B Ref Voltage:auto

tCL (CAS Latency): 5 lz check ya corsair rams timings maybe it's 4-4-4-12
tRCD: 5
tRP: 5
tRAS: 15
Command Per Clock (CMD): 2 clock (2T)

Mulitplier 10x

Advance Memory Settings
tRRD: AUTO
tRC: AUTO
tWR: AUTO
tWTR: AUTO
tREF: AUTO
tRD: AUTO
tRFC: AUTO
Async Latency: AUTO

CPU Spread Spectrum: Disabled
PCIE Spread Spectrum: Disabled
MCP PCIE Spread Spectrum: Disabled
SATA Spread Spectrum: Disabled
LDT Spread Spectrum: Disabled

CPU Internal Thermal Control: Disabled
Limit CPUID MaxVal: Disabled
Enhanced C1 (C1E): Disabled
Execute Disable Bit: Disabled
Virtualization Technology: Disabled
Enhanced Intel Speedstep Tech: Disabled
LDT Frequency: 5x

PCIEX16_1 Frequency (Mhz): 100
PCIEX16_2 Frequency (Mhz): 100
PCIEX16_3 Frequency (Mhz): 100
SPP<->MCP Ref Clock, Mhz: 200

This should work you can go another way by lowering the multiplier and upping the fsb but more voltage will be required, thus more heat generated. I would keep an eye on ya cp temps , I measure them with Coretemp (google it), reads out the temperature of both cores, try to stay below 65°C. Also the Vcore voltage is an estimate, maybe your cpu cna run with less. This will be a good starting point... run orthos blend test to see if it' sstable, if so maybe you can lower the CPU Vcore voltage one increment, test again till you find the exact voltage required....

Good luck
 
Ok, so I have my RAM seller contact me today telling me he has talked to some people about my case with the striker and 6400C4 PRO's.

They tell me that they have people using the striker with 8500C5D's in 4GB and are offering me if I return the RAM I can get a credit to pay an extra $120AUD to get the 8500C5D's.

My questions is, does anyone out there have this working in a 4GB configuration at 1066Mhz on the 1002 bios and is this a worthwhile avenue to pursue?

Thanks again guys! Still waiting on my RA motherboard :)
 
Domenick said:
Ok, so I have my RAM seller contact me today telling me he has talked to some people about my case with the striker and 6400C4 PRO's.

They tell me that they have people using the striker with 8500C5D's in 4GB and are offering me if I return the RAM I can get a credit to pay an extra $120AUD to get the 8500C5D's.

My questions is, does anyone out there have this working in a 4GB configuration at 1066Mhz on the 1002 bios and is this a worthwhile avenue to pursue?

Thanks again guys! Still waiting on my RA motherboard :)
Click to expand...
Is that all 4 sticks upgraded for $120AUD?... or is that 2 kits for $120 each? If it is $120 for all 4, that's a bargain!

As for if it is possible or not - I haven't seen anyone doing it with my own eyes, but I am sure it is.

The 8500C5Ds use different chips than your old RAM (Micron instead of ProMOS) which from all accounts, seem to have better functionality and compatibility with this board.

One of the guys who works at Corsair testing new BIOS's for Asus also has 4GB of that exact RAM (8500C5D) working in a new beta BIOS apparently. It sounds to me that if it is not possible, it soon will be with that RAM. The interesting thing that he said was that not only did you have to adjust your Vdimm voltage, but also your NB voltage..

Good luck mate...
 
WorthIt is right they are working on yet another fix for the corsair ram , but for now all depends if you are overclocking yes or no, some users on a german forum can run with these dominators at stock speeds with 4 dimms without an issue, as soon as they overclock the FSB above 300 mhz they run into trouble. I posted this on corsair webbie and some say it's a NB chipset problem that cannot handle the bandwith generated by these speeds :confused: but disablign SLI, upping ram voltage to correct values and increasing NB voltage helps most...
 
If Nvidia created this chipset to be meant for overclocking, you would think that they would at least test some of this stuff before unleashing it on an unsuspecting public. Not being able to handle the bandwidth through the NorthBridge seems like a pretty amateur mistake to me. Its not like they don't expect their users to overclock the chipset at all... They even released a guide telling people how to do it.
 
Well I think they both play cat and mouse games, but I think they are discovering some weird bugs in their chipset due to numerous amounts of hardware combinations and different clocks. They just had to release this chipset to coincide with their 8800 launch date( damn marketing boys), wished they had left it a few more months in the drawing department and tested more...also with Vista on the horizon many users would opt for 4 gigs now (marketing again)....

Plus overal the bios and it's settings is too complicated for most users that buy these boards, I see the posts each day, shouldn't this work out of the box like this ? ...why do I have to alter settings ? If we didn't have the internet we would have had many questions and almost zero answers.

It all seems weird that all boards have so many issues... but Corsair is also to blame here if even the dimms won't work on stock clocks with so many users....and the numerous what is your PSU ? questions of some of the forum moderators there isn't helping me at all to buy Corsair Dimms again


I like my Striker board,it's very stable on 1002 but I wouldn't recommend this chipset to a beginner in Pc's, he would give up to quickly....
Only issue I'm having now is my Zone Alarm Stop vectoring services bug again( happened to them what 2 years ago ), but that will be updated with a new release ( I hope lol)...
 
Hey guys,

To confirm the ram I bought was $525AUD for each 2GB pack (x2), where as the 8500C5D is selling for $586AUD for each 2GB pack. Therefore to upgrade all 4GB will cost me $122AUD.

Is this good? I wasn't too sure if I should or not, I was told lower CAS is better than faster MHz but I don't know how this all applies to real world benchmarks and applications (such as 3D rendering) which is what I use this machine mainly for (and gaming).

Would this be a good decision to go to 8500C5D Dominators for $120 and will it be faster / and mroe reliable with this different micron IC?

Please let me know if you have any other suggestions.
Thank you :)
 
It iwll be overal faster Domenick, more bandwith and great timings, I hope you can get them to work properly, EVA2000 has posted some tests with his Gskills, note that he uses a highre NB voltage (haven't tried that high yet) of 1.55 an dhis rig runs fine even when he overclocked the FSB to 400, my OCZ didn't do that but I kept max NB voltage around 1.4, so the culprit migth be there....
 
I just RMA'ed my new pair of XMS 6400C4. While the memory worked, it was a different revision than my old pair, so the odds of the two playing nice together were pretty low. On the flipside, Newegg's price for 2x2GB Geil DDR2-800 C5 (part# GX24GB6400DCK=) dropped almost a hundred bucks in the past week, so I've got a set of those on order; should be here Tuesday. I've seen at least one person use them in a EVGA 680i board, so hopefully they'll play nice in the Striker. I hope to have good news to post Tuesday evening!

Edit: Scratch the Geil. After seeing several more post in the Asus forum about people using the Dominators in 4x1GB configurations, I'm going to go with the sure thing (yeah, it cost a 3/4 more, but they'll run a hell of a lot faster). And as far as ram is concerned, I feel its always better to go with the brand you know.
 
Hey Arrow are you getting the 8500C5D's as well? I can't wait to get all my system components back. It's funny, I waited 1.5 months after ordering to get it all, THEN I have the computer for like 1 maybe 2 weeks and now I have been without it a little over a week, that's BS.

You spend like 6G's on a machine only to be waiting on parts, bios upgrades and RMA's :)
I'm going to need to wash after I say this but next time I might just pay the extra money to get an inferior dell XPS710, at least they boot when you get them, right? he he he

Hopefully the extra 266Mhz will outweigh the extra 1CAS compared to my 6400C4's, I talked to my motherboard guy and he said now he has sent the board back for RA he will just wait to send the RAM at the same time so unfortunately there is another week of waiting once ASUS get me another (very hard in Australia).

We will still need a 1.8v module to get the dominators working right? Where can I get a cheap DDR2 dimm for the striker to get into bios, Im talking as cheap and nasty as possible people? Any brand recommendations?
 
Domenick said:
Hey Arrow are you getting the 8500C5D's as well?
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Yup.

I can't wait to get all my system components back. It's funny, I waited 1.5 months after ordering to get it all, THEN I have the computer for like 1 maybe 2 weeks and now I have been without it a little over a week, that's BS.

You spend like 6G's on a machine only to be waiting on parts, bios upgrades and RMA's :)
I'm going to need to wash after I say this but next time I might just pay the extra money to get an inferior dell XPS710, at least they boot when you get them, right? he he he
Click to expand...

Well, that's life on the bleeding edge. It bleeds your patience and your wallet! :D After this batch of upgrades (I'm getting a new case, a better heatsink and faster HDs, which have already shipped), I'll almost have enough "old" parts left to build another machine (heh, I'm actually thinking about getting a cheap e6400 and make a new machine for work).

And about the Dells, they don't work out of the box all the time. Honestly, computers, and most consumer electronics, have the reached the point if they work as advertised right out of the box, I faint.

Hopefully the extra 266Mhz will outweigh the extra 1CAS compared to my 6400C4's, I talked to my motherboard guy and he said now he has sent the board back for RA he will just wait to send the RAM at the same time so unfortunately there is another week of waiting once ASUS get me another (very hard in Australia).
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We've both got 4MB caches on our CPUs. The only time you're ever going to notice a difference, especially at these speeds/bandwidths, is in synthetic benchmarks. The rest of the time your going to be CPU or GPU or bound. And in the odd game were you are memory bound, you'll be doing 100+ FPS anyway. IMO, bandwidth > latency, as long as the latency is reasonable.

We will still need a 1.8v module to get the dominators working right? Where can I get a cheap DDR2 dimm for the striker to get into bios, Im talking as cheap and nasty as possible people? Any brand recommendations?
Click to expand...

Beats me. My 6400C4s would POST at 1.8 no problem, and I suspect the 8500C5Ds will do the same. At any rate, my vMem is already at 2.1v.
 
Domenick - I don't know if you are going to need a separate module for getting into the BIOS either. My Dominators still booted on 1.8V even though they are rated for 2.4V. Also something to note might be that my system isn't stable unless I give the memory 2.35V instead of the rated 2.4V. I've read elsewhere that you need to undervolt memory on this board.. It could be just my memory, or it could be the board, but I know you're getting similar memory to mine so I thought i'd mention it.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys, now it's time for me to play the waiting game on getting my motherboard and ram back... Just pre-oredered C&C 3 yesterday, hopefully my system will be ready for that!

Any news on when the next BIOS is out, any rumours going around? The next one was supposed to help the Corsair's right? Knowing my luck when I sell the C4's it will be fixed in BIOS ;)
 
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