Tight Timings vs High Clock Frequencies

Features
By Jon Kullberg
published

Test Setup

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Processor
Socket 939AMD Opteron 165Denmark core (1800 MHz, 2 x 1 MB L2 Cache)
Motherboard
Socket 939DFI LANParty UT SLI-DR ExpertRev. A3 BIOS: 12/07/2005Chipset: Nvidia nForce4
Memory
DDRG.Skill F1-4400DSU2-1 GBFC2x 512 MB DDR550 (275 MHz, CL 2.5-4-4-8 1T)
Common Hardware
Graphics Card (PCIe)Point of View 7800GTGPU: Nvidia GeForce 7800GT (480 MHz)Memory: 256 MB GDDR3 (1180 MHz)
Hard Drive ISATA Western Digital WD74074 GB, 8 MB Cache, 7200 RPM
Hard Drive IISATA Maxtor Diamondmax 10300 GB, 16 MB Cache, 7200 RPM
Software
Nvidia nForce 4 SLIForceware 6.70
Nvidia GraphicsDetonator 81.98
DirectXVersion: 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
OSWindows XP, SP2

Benchmarks And Settings

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Benchmarks and Settings
DirectX 9
3DMark01 SEBuild 330Resolution: 640x480, 32 Bit (to eliminate any graphics bottleneck)Default Benchmark Run
Synthetic
SiSoftware Sandra 2005Version 2005.10.10.69 SR3Memory Bandwidth Benchmark
Everest Ultimate Edition 2006Version 2.50.480Memory Latency Benchmark
Applications
SuperPIVersion: 1.18M
Jon Kullberg
4 Comments Comment from the forums
  • jona1
    Excellent article. I was looking for a good explanation of memory timings. Thank you (I am from Uruguay, sorry for my bad English :) )
    Reply
  • Good Article I guess. I've been wondering that exact question now that i got 2x1GB of Patriots PC2-8500 Viper Series from NVISION08. The timings are 5-5-5-15 2T at 1066MHz. When i try to lower it 1T it's not reliable. Anyways, thanks tomshardware for another good article, I hope there is a sequel to this, specifically DDR2 or 3 memory.
    Reply
  • spellbinder2050
    As most of you are probably aware, the MHz clock speed of the Athlon 64 and Opteron is the product of the HyperTransport speed (HTT) times the multiplier of the CPU.

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't this be written as, "the MHz clock speed of the Athlon 64 and Opteron is the product of the HyperTransport speed (HTT) and the multiplier of the CPU."
    Reply
  • HTT times Multiplier = CPU speed, the article is correct
    Reply