Motherboards that can handle 4x2GB RAM (DDR2)

Unregistered.

Hi there!

I am thinkin about puttin together a rig over a summer, and i really would like get the most from Win7 64 bit. I'll more than likely be going the AM2+ (with a 720 BE) route to keep cost down so I'll be using DDR2 RAM. I want to know if you guys have any experience/read reviews about motherboards that can "handle" 4 slots of RAM occupied. All I ever heare is that some don't like having all four slots full, why is this?

Can you suggest some mobos that are stable with 4 sticks? Both Intel and AMD.

Cheers.

Blazer

Do yourself a favour..
Don't bother with 8gb on ddr2. Too many hassles with boards.
A lot of the consumer boards aren't tested with all memory and you have to get a specific make of ram etc.
I'd love to up mine to 8gb but am not sure if my board will even take it.
Gigabyte say that Corsair ram is support but it's the slower speed one
Much better to go with Core i7 (Core i5 are coming in Sept- cheaper version of the i7) and DDR3..a lot of the X58 boards are certified for upto 16gb with no probs.

Solitaire

What are you doing to need the extra memory?

The trade-off with memory is that systems often like faster memory as well as more, and most systems that actually need 8GB also need fairly quick RAM to boot. The problem is that the platform cap for DDR2 is 800MHz@CL5. Apart from some very rare 1066MHz@CL7 all the faster (800MHz@CL4 or 1000MHz+) DDR2 are highly stressed, overvolted parts. And that's where the northbridge starts to balk: having all slots filled with tetchy, hot-running chips overvolted way beyond the DDR2 spec of 1.8V. The memory controller (which is only on the mobo on Core2; AMD and i7 have it on the CPU actually ) plays a part but its the motherboard's regulation of the signals through the northbridge that starts to come apart when its dealing with all four slots trying to keep 2.2V signals clean long enough to hit the CPU at the nominal DDR2 voltage; by the time the signals pass through the NB they're still way higher than the designers ever intended so the NB has to be overvolted in turn to successfully track them; chipset heat output flies through the roof and there's still the risk of the signals becoming de-sync'd and crashing the comp unless you find (usually the hard way!) how much slower and looser the latencies are for four DIMMs instead of two. Most overvolted RAM gives timings that only hold up under optimal conditions and having four sticks cooking away next to each other (and making the NB sweat) sure isn't optimal.

So it usually boils down to: going AM3 and getting 4GB 1600MHz CL7 or sticking with AM2 and facing facts that what should be 4GB 1066MHz CL5 is probably going to end up as 1000MHz CL6 at best when you hit 8GB. 800MHz stuff is usually another story... but it doesn't look very impressive vs. DDR3 even with twice as much in there!

Unregistered.

Solitaire wrote: »

What are you doing to need the extra memory?

The trade-off with memory is that systems often like faster memory as well as more, and most systems that actually need 8GB also need fairly quick RAM to boot. The problem is that the platform cap for DDR2 is 800MHz@CL5. Apart from some very rare 1066MHz@CL7 all the faster (800MHz@CL4 or 1000MHz+) DDR2 are highly stressed, overvolted parts. And that's where the northbridge starts to balk: having all slots filled with tetchy, hot-running chips overvolted way beyond the DDR2 spec of 1.8V. The memory controller (which is only on the mobo on Core2; AMD and i7 have it on the CPU actually ) plays a part but its the motherboard's regulation of the signals through the northbridge that starts to come apart when its dealing with all four slots trying to keep 2.2V signals clean long enough to hit the CPU at the nominal DDR2 voltage; by the time the signals pass through the NB they're still way higher than the designers ever intended so the NB has to be overvolted in turn to successfully track them; chipset heat output flies through the roof and there's still the risk of the signals becoming de-sync'd and crashing the comp unless you find (usually the hard way!) how much slower and looser the latencies are for four DIMMs instead of two. Most overvolted RAM gives timings that only hold up under optimal conditions and having four sticks cooking away next to each other (and making the NB sweat) sure isn't optimal.

So it usually boils down to: going AM3 and getting 4GB 1600MHz CL7 or sticking with AM2 and facing facts that what should be 4GB 1066MHz CL5 is probably going to end up as 1000MHz CL6 at best when you hit 8GB. 800MHz stuff is usually another story... but it doesn't look very impressive vs. DDR3 even with twice as much in there!

Ahhh I see now. What about a compromise @ 3x2GB. It wouldn't be dual channel right? But would it be as troublesome as 4x2GB?

If only AMD supported triple channel :rolleyes:

MooseJam

I've got 4 slots occupied with no hassles - striker extreme, i'm sure they have a newer board out now though

Solitaire

That's LGA775 though, isn't it? And what speed was the RAM at (not to mention the brand and what the northbridge was overvolted to...)

I wish there was a ton of data on how AM3 and its 790X/FX/GX handles four DIMMs but its turning out mostly as a gamer platform and so there aren't many 8GB rigs floating about... we do know that many mid-range Core2 platforms have issues with very fast DDR2 though... that may have a lot to do with said overvolting rather than any inherent weakness of the P35/45 chipsets.

Wish AM3 was tri-channel as well, but we'll have to wait until Bulldozer AFAIK. Or will the final Phenom refresh add it?

MooseJam

true should have read the whole post it's 800mhz PC2-6400
never had any problems

OCZ Gold XTC DDR2 PC6400 4096MB KIT

Unregistered.

Solitaire wrote: »

That's LGA775 though, isn't it? And what speed was the RAM at (not to mention the brand and what the northbridge was overvolted to...)

I wish there was a ton of data on how AM3 and its 790X/FX/GX handles four DIMMs but its turning out mostly as a gamer platform and so there aren't many 8GB rigs floating about... we do know that many mid-range Core2 platforms have issues with very fast DDR2 though... that may have a lot to do with said overvolting rather than any inherent weakness of the P35/45 chipsets.

Wish AM3 was tri-channel as well, but we'll have to wait until Bulldozer AFAIK. Or will the final Phenom refresh add it?

Would you agree that, although the phenom II's are very competitive with core2 duos/quads in most cases, they would be ahead of them all outright if they supported triple channel?

astrofool

have had 8GB installed in a P35 Asus blitz formula and P45 Asus p5Q-E, zero stability issues.

Unregistered.

astrofool wrote: »

have had 8GB installed in a P35 Asus blitz formula and P45 Asus p5Q-E, zero stability issues.

Which brand, timings etc??

cherryghost

astrofool wrote: »

have had 8GB installed in a P35 Asus blitz formula and P45 Asus p5Q-E, zero stability issues.

i have 4x2gb Crucial DDR2 PC6400 with no problems either. Works like a charm, and no page file set on Vista 64bit, a lot of programs load in a snap

Unregistered.

cherryghost wrote: »

i have 4x2gb Crucial DDR2 PC6400 with no problems either. Works like a charm, and no page file set on Vista 64bit, a lot of programs load in a snap

Excellent. There's hope out there!

What mobo are you using?

cherryghost

whoops should have mentioned that :P

its a Gigabyte P43 http://www.dabs.ie/products/gigabyte-s775-intel-p43-atx-a-l-5CZH.html?q=gigabyte%20p43

Solitaire

Unregistered. wrote:

Would you agree that, although the phenom II's are very competitive with core2 duos/quads in most cases, they would be ahead of them all outright if they supported triple channel?

Probably not - tri-channel is great for shifting data around the place quickly, especially big chunks of it, but most of the performance loss between C2 and P2 has to do with the inferior emulation and/or processing of standard microcode on the P2's microarchitecture compared to the "industry standard" C2. They're just fundamentally very different inside, like ATI and nVidia GPUs. As a result code that favors implementation/processing one way will be significantly faster on it.

astrofool

triple channel barely makes a difference on the i7 (Read the lynnefield article on anandtech), I doubt it would have an effect on the phenoms/Core2's.

The big difference is that Intel have a much higher IPC (instructions per clock) than AMD, achieved through a combination of:

Very fast L1+L2 cache.
Wide execution engine
Macro/micro ops fusion (combining instructions).
Very fast and efficient branch prediction unit.
Among other things.

AMD's advantages:
Exclusive caches
Large L2 cache
Fully pipelined FPU (not as important these days due to SIMD, but was excellent for scientific apps back in the day).

but most of the performance loss between C2 and P2 has to do with the inferior emulation and/or processing of standard microcode on the P2's microarchitecture compared to the "industry standard" C2

This explanation does not work for the Athlon 64/P4 era, in fact the phenom, being based off the higher performing at the time, ath64, should have been better performing than the core2 (new architecture) if that was true, but it wasn't.

Unregistered.

I see.....

Does dual channel significantly increase speed?