GA-EP31, E7200 should go for a DDR2-1066?

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pstar008

362 posts

Ultimate Geek

#32540 20-Apr-2009 01:16

Hi, I bought my new rig in last year (also my first DIY), and looking for upgrade Ram to 4G, my previousse RAM is
Corsair TWIN2X 6400C4 DDR2 as I was in buget. I can remember why I picked that RAM, but now it looks like 6400C4
is acutally under spec. for my system, I should go for a DDR2-1066 isn't it?

Also, I think my system didn't OC well maybe partially related to my previous RAM? Well, I know it is not a OC ready
system, but I always hear people talking about E7X00 should easily OC to 2.8GHZ or 3.0GHZ with stock CPU fan,
but my rig only stable at about 2.7GHZ, despite the CPU tempeture never increased over 5 degrees at max speed
compare to stock speed.

Sorry, I forget to mention that my MB support FSB up to 1333MHZ and E7200 are using 1066MHZ FSB.

Ilmarin

94 posts

Master Geek

#208207 20-Apr-2009 18:13

Going for more than DDR2-800 RAM is pointless unless you plan on overclocking your motherboard's FSB past 400 MHz (1600 MHz effective). Even then, running a memory clock lower than the FSB doesn't result in a significant difference in potential performance, just as it wouldn't if you ran the memory clock at a higher ratio than 1:1. Since you evidently haven't been able to surpass even 300 MHz FSB, for reasons that are probably related to your CPU voltage, the quality of the motherboard itself, or some BIOS settings that need tweaking, buying faster RAM would not help at all.

The price difference between DDR2-800 and DDR2-1066 is hardly massive, but it's important not to spend more for the wrong reasons. Of course if you want to overclock your RAM for the hell of it (which is evidently the target market for OC RAM), go for it, but just remember that you don't need to do so in order to get a healthy CPU overclock and the performance boost that comes with it.

pstar008

362 posts

Ultimate Geek

#208462 22-Apr-2009 00:36

Ilmarin: Going for more than DDR2-800 RAM is pointless unless you plan on overclocking your motherboard's FSB past 400 MHz (1600 MHz effective). Even then, running a memory clock lower than the FSB doesn't result in a significant difference in potential performance, just as it wouldn't if you ran the memory clock at a higher ratio than 1:1. Since you evidently haven't been able to surpass even 300 MHz FSB, for reasons that are probably related to your CPU voltage, the quality of the motherboard itself, or some BIOS settings that need tweaking, buying faster RAM would not help at all.

The price difference between DDR2-800 and DDR2-1066 is hardly massive, but it's important not to spend more for the wrong reasons. Of course if you want to overclock your RAM for the hell of it (which is evidently the target market for OC RAM), go for it, but just remember that you don't need to do so in order to get a healthy CPU overclock and the performance boost that comes with it.

Thank you for your explaination, now I remember why I bought DDR-800 :). As you said, the price difference are not much,
but spend on no differecen at all, and DDR2 is already a phrase out technology. Any spending on that are just wasted IMO.
But laste time( about last weekend) I checked, all the DDR2-800 RAM price are just going up if they are adjust the price in Ascent, but DDR-1000+ are just stable, so I guess the price difference are going to be less and less.

For my burget, when I bought my rig OC were just not in my consideration. I tried OC on it as I read lots of people OC is really
well, and just OC it as far as it is a free upgrade without any protential harm ( no hight temp, no high vaultage). Not I am not
going to spend more money just for OC, and I don't see better RAM is going to help anyway.