Which memory for overclocking?

[owsley]

Hello,

Do you guys think its better to buy DDR2 1066 and use at base speed, or even lower if necessary, or to buy DDR2 800 and overclock to try to get to 1066 or close to it?

I have an Intel CoreDuo E4500 currently OC'd by 33% to 2.93 gHz, 11x multiplier, 266 mHz FSB clock, 1064 mHz FSB speed.. and cheap stock DDR 667 dual memory sticks made by Hynix running at a base clock of about 444 mHz that OC'd automatically by the same 33% and set to a FSB ratio of 10:6 with 5-5-7-20 timings. This all happened relatively automatically by the stable CPU OC i achieved from the BIOS of my Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L v2 motherboard. Any more detailed tweaking would result in either only POSTs, or kernel crashes at Windows 7 boot.

Im currently considering either http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820211188 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231122 for DDR2 800, or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231246 for 1066.

Thanks alot for the consideration..

-alex

 

[owsley]

~bump~ 50 views, no opinions yet? is it cause im new, lol?

 

[jhengst1962]

Sup Newbie,

I read a few weeks ago that unless your a OC freak, over clocking your RAM is a bad Idea. Most users will not see a noticable increase in performance. So the rick of smoking your RAM is not worth a un-noticiable increase in performace.

 

[owsley]

hey there, thx for the reply.. yeah, i hear ya, im not actually trying to OC my ram necessarily, im just trying to achieve my motherboard and CPU's FSB potential of at least 1066. but currently my ram is only DDR2-667 and is holding me back. so i was just wondering if underclocking DDR2-1066 would be ok, or more or less desirable, than overclocking DDR2-800 memory, as i MAY not even be able to quite hit 1066.

a lesser point is that DDR2-800 will be about $20 cheaper, but thats not gonna drive my decision. i was just looking for some viewpoint i hadn't thought of. and accidentally smoking my RAM to save $20 is a good point!

thx..

 

[owsley]

so new comparison lineup now.. anyone wanna nudge me toward one? all G.Skill, lol! i narrowed to matched 2GB pairs of DDR2-1000 and up, and dropped anything without a heat spreader.. i kept the DDR2-1000 in there just cause it had so many reviewers and still kept a 5 egg rating. all the timings came up the same, and voltages near enough to not really have those specs come into play. would the extra $15 for the DDR2-1100 be worth it?

all i can see that stands out is one pair at $70 that's also designated as "High Performance or Gaming Memory", or is that label kinda inconsequential?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=Property&N=100007611%20600006042%20600006066&IsNodeId=1&PropertyCodeValue=521%3A8080%2C521%3A21731%2C523%3A15794%2C524%3A17523%2C524%3A20643%2C524%3A23284&bop=And&CompareItemList=147%7C20-231-166%5E20-231-166-05%23%2C20-231-145%5E20-231-145-TS%2C20-231-194%5E20-231-194-TS%2C20-231-246%5E20-231-246-TS

thx again all..

p.s. i guess they're so similar that the answer might just be to read through all the hundreds of reviews, lol.. i wish you could screen OUT keywords in reviews on newegg, i hate having to go over the DOA reviews, thats just gonna happen sometimes in any production facility.. millions of G.Skill sticks are out there working just fine..