RAM & overclocking question

beaker

I'm building my first rig and I've done loads of research but I can't get my head around RAM. I have two questions.

1) I'm hoping to figure out overclocking once I get up and running. In order to overclock the processor, do you need to also overclock the RAM? Or are they seperate issues? That is, if I want to oc the processor, do I need to get fancy/pricey RAM?

2) What RAM to get?

Here is the core spec:

- MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum-54G

- AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice

- Sapphire Radeon X800XL PCIe 256MB

I was looking at the following RAM, but it is now out of stock:

- TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM 1024MB Dual Pack Kit w/two matched PC3200 DDR DIMMs Komplett

Could anyone please recommend any RAM from Komplett or Jes or shop4memory?

Thanks for your help. Neeearly ready to order.

Jammer

In short: Better ram will help.

Although your motherboard supports 400MHZ ram (PC3200), if you buy PC3500 then when you overclock, your RAM will easily reach the speeds required by the overclock. ie 200MHZ RAM could struggle wheras 3500 would be fine.

Overclocking involves raising the FSB, and when you do that, you raise the speed of your RAM.

OCZ stuff is good, or Mushkin or Corsair. AMD's like tight timings too, so take that into account for best performence.

beaker

Thanks for the reply.

Given that my spec is solid but not super-high-end, how much do you think is reasonable to spend on RAM? It seems to start at €100 and rapidly head north.

Also, (shocking noob question alert! :eek: ) what do tight timings look like?

JackKelly

beaker wrote:

Thanks for the reply.

Given that my spec is solid but not super-high-end, how much do you think is reasonable to spend on RAM? It seems to start at €100 and rapidly head north.

Also, (shocking noob question alert! :eek: ) what do tight timings look like?

I'd call that a fairly high end machine! Im planning on building literally the same PC this summer. If you are thinking of the future, you might consider DDR2 RAM. Ram timings and here. If you plan on OC'ing ,you will want fairly decent RAM. Definitely a Gig.

padraigf

No such thing as DDR2 ram with an athlon 64.

uberpixie

padraigf wrote:

No such thing as DDR2 ram with an athlon 64.

Not yet but there will be soon.

Socket M2.

And I think some newer nf4 boards might be coming out with ddr2 support in the future

JackKelly

padraigf wrote:

No such thing as DDR2 ram with an athlon 64.

Really? Didn't know that. Would have been a €150 badly spent!

uberpixie

TimAy wrote:

Really? Didn't know that. Would have been a €150 badly spent!

DDR 2 at the mo is expensive and has no real performance advantage over ddr 1.

That will change in the future but only when the bus speeds get ramped up big time.

Getting ddr 1 is not a disadvantage. €200 gets you 2 gig of the stuff(cas 2.5 value) As opposed to €300 in ddr 2!

uberpixie

beaker wrote:

Thanks for the reply.

Given that my spec is solid but not super-high-end, how much do you think is reasonable to spend on RAM? It seems to start at €100 and rapidly head north.

Also, (shocking noob question alert! :eek: ) what do tight timings look like?

Fancy ram is only good if you want to seriously overclock. Tighter timings mean the ram works faster.

However the performance difference between normal value ram (cas 3/2.5) and fancy ram(cas 2 or stuff faster than pc3200) in games is only ever 2-3 frames!

You only see the benefit of the tighter timings if you are serious into video encoding.

For games spending money on a fast hardriver like a 10,000 rpm raptor or getting a better gfx card gives you better bang to the buck performance wise than buying ram with super tight timings.

If you are not going to overclock bigtime stick to value ram.

Twinmos stuff is grand. Have a gig of it myself. Does the job. Just don't bother trying to overclock it :-)

beaker

Great replies, guys. Thanks.

I'm still not quite clear on this point, though:

uberpixie wrote:

If you are not going to overclock bigtime stick to value ram.

Twinmos stuff is grand. Have a gig of it myself. Does the job. Just don't bother trying to overclock it :-)

So if I go with value RAM, does this mean I won't be able to overclock the processor at all?

Or does it mean I will be able to overclock the processor, but not the RAM?

(Was planning to research overclocking after I got up and running... )