I'm looking to upgrade my system soon, but I'm not sure about which RAM to get. I might do some fairly light O/Cing, but not much (I would mainly O/C graphics card/PSU, I don't know much about O/Cing RAM yet). I've read quite a bit about the latencies and stuff, but I'm confused - Is lower better or higher? It seems lower is better...But you need loose latencies for O/Cing? Anyway, that's a different topic.
I was thinking about 4-4-4-12, DDR2 800 PC3200. I want it under £60, although cheaper is even better as I'm finding it hard to afford the upgrade as it is. I might go slightly higher, but I don't really want to.
The system will be something VERY similar to this:
Gigabyte GA-P35C-D3SR
E6750
Corsair 620W
8800GT
I'm from the UK, so links to UK websites would be helpful - ebuyer.com, aria.co.uk, overclockers.co.uk, scan.co.uk etc
I've been thinking Corsair, GeIL or OCZ. I've heard the Crucial Ballistix is good, but I just can't afford it.
e6750 uses 667mhz DDR2 by default in a 1:1 config. In this case if you were to increase the FSB of the CPU to a 1:1 ratio so that it utilises all 800mhz of the DDR2 800 then youd be looking at an overclock of your e6750 (2.66) to 3.2ghz before you had to worry about overclocking your RAM. If you want to go higher than this i would suggest getting a nice 1066 DDR2 part but i think 3.2ghz is a nice moderate OC without too much risk involved. Those 4 are all great choices, i thought Crucial Ballistix were actually cheaper than most Corsair parts but i maybe wrong. Patriot is also another one to look at. Generally lower the timings the closer your bandwidth is to the theoretical and the faster response times.
The RAM in my sig is available from scan.
Thats where I bought mine and on today only it was £51 for 2Gb.
It has a sodding great big heatsink (a little pointless!) but good quality memory
Really limited it, eh? >_> They all seems so similar, and I've heard good stuff about all of them! Anything I should specifically look for, or should I just chose based on looks/price etc?
I think I'm to try and go down to <£50, rather than <£60.
Should I just go for C4 (4-4-4-12 etc), or does it matter if I go above (up to, say, 5-5-5-18)? For example, the Kingston is 5-5-5-18, but on another forum someone said it's fairly easy to run them at 1.8V/4-4-4-12 or better.
Sorry for all the RAM newbiness, I'm trying to learn though.
Generally, the best DDR2 for overclocking uses Micron D9 chips. These chips are usually able to go a good bit above their rated speeds with a bit of extra voltage and looser timings. I suggest double checking the ram list to make sure the ram you chose is Micron if you want to maximize your overclocking (and fun) potential:
http://ramlist.ath.cx/ddr2/
Crucial is the Micron RAM brand, therefore, you are assured to get the Micron chips. In the US they have been basically giving away the Ballistix DIMMs for 9 months (~ $50 for 2x1GB).
It terms of your timing Q's. If the brands are all PC6400, but the rated timing are different - go with the brand with the lowest timings and voltages (as long as the price is similar). They are telling you the stability. I think most of the C4 chips you listed are Micron, however some of those C5s are something else. The Micron D9s can take a lot of voltage, usually >~ 2.3V, don't think you have to use 1.8V.
------------------------------Take what man makes and use it,
But do not worship it,
For it shall pass.
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