In kind of a bind...

[werxen]

So I am in kind of a bind here, fellas. Right now I have 2 gigs or Corsair ram @ 800 mgh speed which equals 400 FSB capability. I cannot go any farther so that limits me to 3.8 on stock voltage. I was thinking of getting 4 gigs of whatever ram @ 1066 so 1) I can virtualize Ubuntu on my box inside of Windows and 2) at the same time overclock my E8500 past 4 gighz. All the ram I see at that speed/space are around 80-90 dollars. Do you guys think it is a wise investment in DDR2 considering all the new cpus take ddr3? I do not want to waste money but I am not sure of the longevity of this box. I know it is fast and it can keep up for another 2 years but my ram will ultimately be my downfall. I need at least 4 gigs! Would you guys make the investment?

 

[caamsa]

So I am in kind of a bind here, fellas. Right now I have 2 gigs or Corsair ram @ 800 mgh speed which equals 400 FSB capability. I cannot go any farther so that limits me to 3.8 on stock voltage. I was thinking of getting 4 gigs of whatever ram @ 1066 so 1) I can virtualize Ubuntu on my box inside of Windows and 2) at the same time overclock my E8500 past 4 gighz. All the ram I see at that speed/space are around 80-90 dollars. Do you guys think it is a wise investment in DDR2 considering all the new cpus take ddr3? I do not want to waste money but I am not sure of the longevity of this box. I know it is fast and it can keep up for another 2 years but my ram will ultimately be my downfall. I need at least 4 gigs! Would you guys make the investment?

If you are going to hang onto the system for at least another 2 years I say do it. You can always pick up a quad or a faster video card and continue to enjoy your system.

 

[Guest]

RAM matters so little in overall performance I wouldn't even bother with it beyond the lowest acceptable standard.

Right now that is 4gb of DDR2-800, which incidentally is what I am using on both my pc's. Check out ebay for a couple of cheap sticks and forget about DDR3.

 

[werxen]

RAM matters so little in overall performance I wouldn't even bother with it beyond the lowest acceptable standard.

Right now that is 4gb of DDR2-800, which incidentally is what I am using on both my pc's. Check out ebay for a couple of cheap sticks and forget about DDR3.

I can't overclock past 3.8 with 800 ram....

*smacks head*

 

[masterjaw]

RAM matters so little in overall performance I wouldn't even bother with it beyond the lowest acceptable standard.

Right now that is 4gb of DDR2-800, which incidentally is what I am using on both my pc's. Check out ebay for a couple of cheap sticks and forget about DDR3.

*Face palm*

If you read it again, he said he has 2GB of DDR2-400, not 4GB.

If you want to go the DDR3 path, you'll have to include a new motherboard to the expenses (if your current motherboard doesn't support it and I assume that your CPU supports it also). That will give you an extended lifespan but with a price.

Or just buy another 2gb set of what you currently have now (DDR2-800) and postpone your 4Ghz target. Given the prices of DDR2 inflating closely towards the prices of DDR3 modules, I'd say it would be a waste. This is just my personal opinion though.

 

[outlw6669]

You could always drop your timings to 5-5-5-15.
That should give your RAM quite a bit of overclocking headroom....
If it were me, I would defiantly get more RAM.

 

[Guest]

I can't overclock past 3.8 with 800 ram....

*smacks head*

You can overclock your RAM...

Oh wait you mean you are limited to 400 fsb, right?

 

[Guest]

*Face palm*

If you read it again, he said he has 2GB of DDR2-400, not 4GB.

Yes that's why I suggested getting another 2gb of DDR2 and forgetting about DDR3 so maybe you need to facepalm yourself?

 

[jsc]

First of all, let me say, "There ain't no such thing as DDR2-1066 RAM." Got your attention now, yes?

DDR2-1066 RAM is simply DDR2-800 RAM that has been tested to run at the higher speed, usually at an increased voltage and more relaxed timings.

So...

To hit 4.0 GHz, you need just a little less than a 20 MHz FSB increase.

Make sure that the memory clock multiplier is not on AUTO. Set it to 2.0. You want the memory clock frequency to be 2 times the FSB.

If that doesn't work, try to turn your DDR2-800 RAM into DDR2-1066 RAM. Increase the RAM voltage by .2 volts or no more than 2.2 volts. Loosen the timing one set of numbers, like 4-4-4-12 to 5-5-5-15 or 5's-15 to 6's-18. To hit 4.0 GHz, you need just a little less than a 20 MHz FSB increase.

Keep your CPU temps under 70 C and your core voltage at or less than 1.3625 volts.

 

[Guest]

+1 jsc, even Corsair Dominator 1066mhz RAM is 800mhz and you need to overclock it yourself.

 

[roofus]

if he is running DDR2 800, his timings are probably tighter than 5-5-5-15. outlw gave good advice there in loosening your memory timing.

 

[outlw6669]

According to his sig, he is running 2GB DDR2 800 at 4-4-4-12.
Simply relaxing to 5-5-5-15 should get him to at least 1000Mhz.

jsc, while I would have agreed with you a while back, JEDEC has Standardized DDR2 1066.
At least one manufacturer (Micron) has Announced and is currently Producing native 1.8v CL7 DDR2 1066.
Still, you do not see to many of these running at stock.
Most are factory overvolted in order to run tighter timings.

 

[werxen]

Hmm I already tried relaxing my timings to 5-5-5-15 and even 5-5-5-18 I really think I got screwed on my ram selection because it honest to god is that limited to 400 FSB.... I'll give it another go around here in a few but I am expecting the same results as always.

 

[theholylancer]

guys, in order to BEST enjoy a good speed in a Virtualized Ubuntu system, you need to allocate at least 1 GB of ram for just that system, and if he is running vista/windows 7 the 1 GB remaining (well more than that if he is using VMWare Workstation 6.5 or 7? and is only allocating memory used instead of the full thing), will be a issue

I would say get up to 4 GB and then you should be set, you can even allocate 2 GB of ram

But the OCing part, well make sure you turn on Vt-X in bios pior to OCing, so that you can OC with VT-X on as I know it affects stability when I was OCing my I7 920 and I had to adjust accordingly, and that VT-X is very much great (and needed for VMWare) for 64 bit OS VMing


Maybe time to put it on a divider? I see no performance impact with my old A64 or my new I7, I don't know how a non HTT/QPI system would react to it tho....