MSI Diamond plus with 4GB

[tchiwam]

Hello,
I just got myself what I tought to be a really nice mothe board with an AMD X2 4800+ and 4x1GB of DDR400. I have to put it simply, I am not an OC fan, I want things to run well and be silent.

I tought this issue was fixed on the latest cores but is obviously not fixed. When running with 4 banks it is slowing down the memory to DDR333.

I only found the Tyan mother boards saying that they support 4GB @ DDR400.

Anyway to make this board run at DDR400 ?
If Tyan can do it why not MSI ?
Where to get single rank 1GB memory ?
Would it be better to get 2GB memory and use only 2 DIMMs, but the board say it doesn't support it.


PS: the only bad thing on AMD's X2 processors is the fact that they don't support ECC.

 

[apache_lives]

Hello,
I just got myself what I tought to be a really nice mothe board with an AMD X2 4800+ and 4x1GB of DDR400. I have to put it simply, I am not an OC fan, I want things to run well and be silent.

I tought this issue was fixed on the latest cores but is obviously not fixed. When running with 4 banks it is slowing down the memory to DDR333.

I only found the Tyan mother boards saying that they support 4GB @ DDR400.

Anyway to make this board run at DDR400 ?
If Tyan can do it why not MSI ?
Where to get single rank 1GB memory ?
Would it be better to get 2GB memory and use only 2 DIMMs, but the board say it doesn't support it.


PS: the only bad thing on AMD's X2 processors is the fact that they don't support ECC.

aparently you can force speeds to 400?

 

[TabrisDarkPeace]

Check my design notes here:
http://users.on.net/~darkpeace/hardware/Opteron270.html
Mostly the ones at the bottom in a small font (increase size).

You may be able to use a 2 CMD RATE and force 400 MHz.
Using 4 x double rank (not to be confused with banks or sides) memory on an Athlon 64 / Opteron (singluar processor) system should force 2 CMD RATE anyway. (As with 8 ranks the processor will go into a 'slow memory mode' to be able to address all the ranks, if it didn't the system would be unstable - Get massive memory errors, even with ChipKill(tm) or ECC enabled )

Forcing 400 MHz while trying to force 1 CMD RATE will lead to massive stability issues.

PS: the only bad thing on AMD's X2 processors is the fact that they don't support ECC.

This may be incorrect, you can plug a AMD Athon 64 X2 into a typical Opteron 200 series mainboard and it will work with Registered ECC memory as far as I know. You won't be able to install two of them at once (only the Opteron 200 and 800 series will support 2 socket opperation).

See: Revision Guide for AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Opteron Processors revisions ; at : http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/25759.pdf - 362.2KB ; for details.

 

[tchiwam]

aparently you can force speeds to 400?

I tried to put the FSB/Memory divider to 1/1 and it stills says DDR333 ...

 

[TabrisDarkPeace]

Can you get SiSoft SANDRA 200X and perform a memory benchmark ?

At least that way you'll be able to get a rough idea, maybe it just 'reports DDR-333' when it isn't.

If you are using 'nVidia nTune' then you can actually make the board firmware (for lack of a better word) report whatever you want, even though it may be totally incorrect.

 

[tchiwam]

I am not using windows at all on this system, but I'll try to find a meaningful benchmark for memory. Thanks a lot for the hint.

 

[TabrisDarkPeace]

LINPACK might include something.... not anywhere near 100% sure though.

Which OS are you running ? (eg: Linux, Solaris, BSD, etc)
and which version of said OS, if Linux which Kernel (it can matter with some software as 2.6.x is becoming popular... finally)

 

[tchiwam]

I am using Gentoo linux 64bit with 2.6.15 kernel.

CMD rate is now 2T and I have tried to force it to 200Mhz clock... as you say it might be a display fluke and not a real measurement.

About the ECC comment, I have 4 DIMM of 512MB DDR400 ECC REG and the mainboard will simply just not work, they work very well in our Opteron IBM e326.

In my appplication, the stream BW is more important than latency, so it would be beneficial to have DDR400.

What memory have DDR400 single rank 1GB ? I haven't been able to check if the Kingston dimms were single or dual rank, That's what is in there right now, Kingston 2* KVR400X64C3AK2/2G

 

[TabrisDarkPeace]

Ahhh. you are using: KVR 400 X64 C3 AK2 / 2G

That X64 means the memory is 64x8 setup, and not 128x4 setup, this implies the sticks may be dual-rank *, depending on the number of DRAM chips, and their logical layout.

* (not to be confused with bank/side).

128x4 sticks also permit ChipKill(tm) (basically far more advanced ECC) opperation.

The sticks I use are:
http://www.valueram.com/datasheets/KVR400S4R3A_1G.pdf

You may be able to find a similar PDF on the ValueRAM or Kingston websites with the spes of your above DIMMs.

You could also just try running with 2 sticks instead of 4 and see if the autoconfiguration at boot (after 2 reboots) changes anything.

The problem AMD have with integrated memory controller is they can only drive so much current, and it limits Opterons to PowerNow! (although they have a software varient of Cool'n'Quiet for Linux only on the www.amd.com website if you are interested). It also limits the amount of memory you can address (per processor - as each processor can drive 4 ranks of memory, or up to 12-16 at lower speeds with high latency - eg: Database server with large OS Disk Cache, or large DB stored in RAM instead of a RAMSAN).

 

[tchiwam]

The conclusion of this thread is... wait for socket F or hope AM2 can handle reg ECC memory and sell this stuff away. Potentially get an Opteron if the normal consumer CPU don't suppport ECC and registered...

 

[TabrisDarkPeace]

Fixed link above:

See: Revision Guide for AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Opteron Processors revisions ; at : http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/25759.pdf - 362.2KB ; for details.

Sorry, didn't test it after posting