View previous topic :: View next topic |
Author |
Message |
Horatio Apprentice
Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 246 Location: Houston, TX
|
Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 6:17 pm Post subject: What RAM to buy? |
|
|
I have a Gigabyte GA-K8VNXP w/ bios f7. Although because the DDR memory controller is on my processor, a 3000+ AMD64 w/ 512k cache, does my motherboard make a difference? I had bought a k-byte 512MB stick of 2700 ddr from a local store. It ran fine w/ a 256MB stick of pny 2100 ddr, but alone my machine would eventually crash. I don't know what chips where on that k-byte because the heat spreader was rived on, and I have already returned it. I now have a 512MB stick of ddr 2700 kingston value ram part num. KVR333/512R. The chips on the kingsion are an infineon HYB25D256800CE-5. The Kingston value ram has run w/o a crash for about six days, and current uptime is 1 day 5 min.
My question is what memory shouuld I buy? I believe I want 2 ddr 3200 sticks.
Looking at www.newegg.com, I found some sticks made by Rosewill, and if you look at the picture you can see the chips are made by samsung. Althouth I can't find that chip number at http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_869_893,00.html (the side links at the right). Anyone have any experience or thoughts on the rosewill sticks? I was also considering from www.newegg.com,
Corsair Value Select 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200 - OEM and OCZ Enhanced Latency Serices 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200 - Retail. What might I expect from each of these sticks? Most important is the memory stable, and then is its performance worth the price?
Last edited by Horatio on Sat Sep 04, 2004 11:25 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
Back to top |
|
|
cvig n00b
Joined: 04 Sep 2004 Posts: 13
|
Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 7:08 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I have an Asus K8V SE Deluxe and it is very picky about memory. Does your motherboard manufacturer have a list of approved modules? Normally, that information is bogus but in this case (with the AMD 64) I believe it is valid information although always slightly outdated.
I brought 2 x 512MB PC3200 Mushkin Simple Green sticks from NewEgg and had a ton of problems. Turns out one stick is bad. Now I have in the computer 1 x 512MB PC3200 Hynix and 1 x 512MB PC3200 Mushkin. Works great. My DDR voltage is at 2.6v (instead of stock 2.5v?) but I'm going to bump that back down today and check everything.
The #1 thing you have to do is set your memory settings manually if the automatic doesn't work. If you still have problems, you can try bumping up the DDR voltage.
But if you're motherboard manufacturer doesn't say anything about DDR compatiblity, I'd just buy whatever RAM you want at the price level you are comfortable with. I personally don't see any sense in paying more fore CAS 2 over CAS 3 when the performance difference appears to be extremely small. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
malloc l33t
Joined: 19 Sep 2003 Posts: 762
|
Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 7:22 pm Post subject: |
|
|
If you're talking brands...
Corsair, Geil, OCZ, Kingston...By that order. _________________ --> Linux ### 2.6.11-ck2 #1 Sat Mar 12 20:21:30 WET 2005 i686 GNU/Linux <-- |
|
Back to top |
|
|
crazycat l33t
Joined: 26 Aug 2003 Posts: 838 Location: Hamburg, Germany
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
Horatio Apprentice
Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 246 Location: Houston, TX
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
get sirius Guru
Joined: 27 Apr 2002 Posts: 316 Location: Madison, WI
|
Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 10:06 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I have been using Corsair's ultra-low-latency PC3200 TwinX modules (both registered and unbuffered) for several years now with very good luck on Asus, MSI, Epox, and Tyan motherboards and both x86 as well as x86_64 cpus. Terrific performance and terrific reliability. I cannot recommend them too highly! |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Ypsilon Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 19 Jul 2002 Posts: 92 Location: Germany
|
Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 10:43 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Yes, Corsair RAM is great.
I have 1 Gig of PC3200 TwinX over here, too and I am just happy with it.
If you want to spend the money, buy Corsair TwinX modules. They're tested, have life-long warranty and are quite the fastest you can get. _________________ gentoo ownz. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Horatio Apprentice
Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 246 Location: Houston, TX
|
Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 5:38 am Post subject: |
|
|
I decided to buy 2 sticks of Rosewill. Currently my uptime is :
Code: |
01:20:57 up 3 days, 23:01, 9 users, load average: 0.02, 0.02, 0.00
|
and counting...
the chips on them read :
Code: |
Rosewill IDUT8S8NB2AM-5
|
and the sticker on them read :
Code: |
512M pc-3200 RW4001512 0435
|
The price was right in buget, $144 w/ ship+handling. I Don't know how to determine the CAS the memory is really running on my machine, but the memory controller is on the amd64 processor die. So it should work on yours. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
g0su Guru
Joined: 14 May 2003 Posts: 437 Location: Dresden, Deutschland
|
Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:28 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Hello.
1ºOCZ PC3700 BE
2ºCorsair PC3500 2-3-2
3ºBH5 "oem"
Bye _________________ Busco desarrollador con complejo de proxy, interesados MP |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Tsonn Guru
Joined: 03 Jun 2004 Posts: 550
|
Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 1:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Hmm. Uptime isn't a very good measure of memory reliability... you could have had a number of memory faults without it bringing the system down. Memtest is your friend
Incidentally, when I first got my system... A8V Deluxe motherboard, two 512Mb sticks of Crucial 3200... I found it was very unreliable. Turned out one of the sticks couldn't cope with DDR400. I decided to test the performance difference when running at DDR333 before getting a replacement... I used 3DMark under windows and the highest score was 1024Mb at DDR333, followed by 512Mb at DDR333, with the lowest being 512Mb at DDR400.
I'm not entirely sure why that was... does DDR400 improve memory bandwidth at the cost of higher latency? Or vice versa?
But, either way, I stuck with DDR333 and all is good. _________________ If your question was answered, please edit the first post and add [SOLVED] to the title. Thanks! |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Flying_Horse n00b
Joined: 22 Aug 2004 Posts: 33 Location: Wohmbrechts, Germany
|
Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 1:41 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I bought a brandnew ASUS A8V with an AMD64 3400 and 2x512MB Kingston 3200 ValueRAM (recomended by ASUS). I got big problems even booting the live cd. After installing one 256-333 memory stick all was fine. Yesterday I bought two 512MB sticks from Corsair (TWINX1024-3200XL) and my machine runs much faster and had no kernel panic until now. Quite expensive but worth it
Cheers, Klaus |
|
Back to top |
|
|
g0su Guru
Joined: 14 May 2003 Posts: 437 Location: Dresden, Deutschland
|
Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 3:24 pm Post subject: |
|
|
MMM corsair, ocz, geil, kigstom etc etc is the name of the mount(i think than the really word is manufacter, is posible?) company. But the important are the chips.
Is the chip is BH5, BH6 etc etc don't matter the company, corsair, ocz, kigstom, a-data... the important is the chip of memory.
Bh5 for amd64 is a good idea if u don't OC. cas 2-2-2-11 200
For OC a-data vitesta pc4000 with hynx is a good idea: 2'5-3-3-11 250/260.
Bye! _________________ Busco desarrollador con complejo de proxy, interesados MP |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Spear n00b
Joined: 08 Mar 2004 Posts: 65
|
Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 4:13 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I'm running a Gigabyte K8NNXP, basically the same board but with an nForce chipset. I've got CorsairXMS3200 CAS 2 in it running rock solid at 440MHz. Don't go cheap on the memory it will come back to bite you. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Kow Apprentice
Joined: 28 Dec 2003 Posts: 227
|
Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2004 5:36 am Post subject: |
|
|
My Samsung PC3200 400mhz 512mb sticks seem to be doing just fine. Samsung is probably not at the top of the list, but they are up there. _________________ -Kow |
|
Back to top |
|
|
yottabit Guru
Joined: 11 Nov 2002 Posts: 313 Location: Columbus, Ohio, US
|
Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 1:11 am Post subject: |
|
|
My preference as a commerical workstation & server builder who only sells AMD:
* Corsair (almost all use SEC/Samsung memory, and occaisonally MT/Micron)
* SEC/Samsung
* MT/Micron
* Infineon
* Toshiba
Don't waste your money with anything else.
And of course don't forget than whenever you build a new system, or upgrade motherboard/CPU/memory you should *always* run MemTest86+ off the LiveCD. Let it run at least 5-10 passes, if not overnight, and save yourself a TON of headaches later by knowing your memory and northbridge are at least stable.
Cheers!
J _________________ Play The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy! |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Psykk n00b
Joined: 04 Feb 2005 Posts: 49
|
Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 4:55 am Post subject: |
|
|
I'd personally suggest Corsairs or Kingstons, with OCZ close behind. _________________ The GPL is Harmful |
|
Back to top |
|
|
scharkalvin Guru
Joined: 31 Jan 2004 Posts: 331 Location: south florida
|
Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 3:13 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I'll put a plug in for Crucial. They used to be a Gentoo sponser, don't know why they
dropped off the website. Still their prices are OK, and I havn't had any problems
with their parts. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Lucky B Apprentice
Joined: 01 Apr 2005 Posts: 235 Location: Florida
|
Posted: Sat May 07, 2005 1:14 am Post subject: |
|
|
thread necromancy rox my sox.
Corsair el-cheapo dual-channel 1GB kit x 2 here. _________________ We are Dyslexic of Borg. Fusistance is retile. Your ass will be laminated. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
paulisdead Guru
Joined: 10 Apr 2002 Posts: 510 Location: Seattle, WA
|
Posted: Sat May 07, 2005 3:51 am Post subject: |
|
|
I've had great luck with my OCZ platinum rev2, but it's pricey stuff. I've found the Corsair XMS to be less compatible than the OCZ with certain A64 mobos, but it worked fine in others, despite the fact that the corsair XMS and OCZ rev2 use the same samsung TCCD chips. I don't know about your current board, but the gigabyte k8ns pro, and k8ns ultra had some issues with the XMS. The Pro wouldn't even run at default clocks and latencies, the ultra just wouldn't overclock well with the XMS. They might have been able to fix that with a bios update. From what I've heard, Corsair used a less compatible PCB on their more recent XMS, so that could be the cause of the problems on some boards.
The OCZ rev2 has been great for me, I run it at 530DDR 2.5-3-3-10. It is pricey stuff, but fantastic. Their revision 1 stuff has been just as compatible, but less overclockable, and I've seen it for as low as $150 for a 1GB pack of the stuff at 2-3-2-5 ddr400. _________________ "we should make it a law that all geeks have dates" - Linus |
|
Back to top |
|
|
AlchEmysT n00b
Joined: 19 Feb 2005 Posts: 69 Location: California, US
|
Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 6:19 am Post subject: |
|
|
Quote: | I bought a brandnew ASUS A8V with an AMD64 3400 and 2x512MB Kingston 3200 ValueRAM (recomended by ASUS). |
I have the exact same thing .. if we bought them at the same store (Extreme Gear) i'll be freaked out ...
but i haven't had ANY problems with the Kingston ram at all. I even set the CL to 2.5 and still running solid and fast.
i've built many computers and bought many different ram modules by lots of manufacturers. Kingston for it's price and reliability is my numero uno now. _________________ - http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-x86-quickinstall.xml -
http://isnoop.net/gmail/
give / get - gmail invites |
|
Back to top |
|
|
souln0thing n00b
Joined: 25 Jan 2005 Posts: 14
|
Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 9:56 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I havent bought too many name brand ram chips, just one for my current system. Which is a corsair xms 512mb at pc3200(beleive thats the right number) from newegg, and im pretty impressed, runs under 90 for 512mb. So i would say corsair |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Aynjell Veteran
Joined: 28 Jun 2004 Posts: 1117
|
Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 5:40 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I've two sticks of DDR400 ValueRAM with a cas latency of 3 (well 3, but the 3rd slows the rig down). Oddly enough, when I had windows, my benchmarking showed the stick with the CL of 3 was faster than the other stick of valueRAM with a CL of 2.5. Well, I take that back:
The score WAS in favour of the 2.5, but the graphics were better wth the CL of 3. They were smoother and cleaner, and it WAS a noticible difference. This is with a 3200 with a 512 KB cache and a GeForce 6800. Product matching is never perfect unfortunately... Many times some things work better for no reason. _________________ CPU: 3800+ X2 (2.5Ghz)
GPU: eVGA 7600GT (640/1700)
MOBO: DFI SLI-DR (Surprisingly good!)
RAM: 2 x OCZ Gold 1024 DDR500 3-4-3-7 (2048)
HDD: Western Digital Raptor |
|
Back to top |
|
|
msalerno Veteran
Joined: 17 Dec 2002 Posts: 1338 Location: Sweating in South Florida
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
dezydery Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posts: 87
|
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 10:26 pm Post subject: |
|
|
...and I normally point them here: http://www.crucial.com/uk - for reasons that should be self-explanatory.
Great site, makes it easy to find the right RAM, great prices and I've never had a problem yet. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
yottabit Guru
Joined: 11 Nov 2002 Posts: 313 Location: Columbus, Ohio, US
|
Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 1:13 am Post subject: |
|
|
I believed in and exclusively bought MicronTech (Crucial) for many many years of EDO memory. I didn't find their SDRAM in the beginning to be of the same quality as their EDO. It almost always worked, but just didn't have that special something I was used to with their EDO product. That's when I started using Samsung and Infineon and a few others.
Since then I have almost exclusively used Corsair which usually is memory from Samsung, but is also occasionally memory from MicronTech (Crucial) or Infineon. I've been extremely happy with the value and performance provided by Corsair memory.
For my last personal build my distributor was backordered on Corsair memory (I was told Corsair had a backorder on the Samsung chips) so I went with the equivalent part from OCZ which is also Samsung. I've been happy with the OCZ as well. In the future I may compare OCZ & Corsair prices and pick whichever provides the best value.
J _________________ Play The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy! |
|
Back to top |
|
|
|