Thread: Ram question

RAM Question.

i have the ASUS P5N-E SLI board and it says memory standard is ddr2 @ 800MHz. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131142

is it a waste of money to get ram that is greater than pc6400?
for example, pc8500...would buying something like this be a waste of money?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148070

also, if buying the above memory is a waste because of the limitations of the P5N-E mobo, is it possible to overclock my pc6400 over 800MHz and have the system gain performance?

Thanks for the help people.

Soy, Intel rigs are a bit different from AMD in the way they overclock and work. You can over clock the ram and cpu independently of each other. Not like AMD where as you raise the FSB the ram also increases. You can run the ram 1:1 tho ... You could actually set the 1066 ram to run at 800mhz and then overclock the ram and cpu at the same time ( linked ) . With pretty tight timings and stock voltages as well.

Or..

You can use that ram with out overclocking it and at its rated speed... What you do is go into your bios and unlink your ram from the cpu and set the ram to run at 1066 mhz... I have the same board as you do.. and you can overclock your ram and cpu independently from each other. I have some cheap G skill that i got from new egg ddr 800 mhz ram for $48 and I have it overclocked to 1000mhz ... But like I said you can get the 1066mhz ram and unlink the ram from the cpu and set the ram to run at 1066.. I also suggest getting 0401 bios.


As far as overclocking the ram you have, that depends on what modules are on your sticks... The G Skill's I have are D9 chips which overclock pretty good...Most DDR2 are either promo's or d9's ... what kind of ram is it? Do you have the exact model number? If you can supply that I can tell you what chips you have.



And if you do overclock the ram you have now.. I highly suggest sticking a fan on the ram or atleast have some air blowing across the ram..

sorry for the links not working. here is the mobo http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131142
here is the ram http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820146565

i have the fsb at 1600MHz (Qdr) that is 400MHz x9 = 3.6GHz

i have always used unlink and At the moment i have my ram speed at 800MHz ddr2...so at these speeds linked and unlinked doesnt matter, however i unlink them so i can change them independently. this gives fsb:dram of 1:1 which i prefer to run...

The memory standard is 800MHz on this ASUS board. thats why i am asking if i run pc8500 ram at 1066MHz, if it will be compatible with the board and if the board will have problems running ram at that speed.

i have cooling on the NB and SB chips and only heatspreaders on the crucial ram.

if it would give me a performance boost. I would like to upgrade my pc6400 sticks for the pc8500 and run my fsb at 1600MHz (Qdr) on cpu along with my ram at 1066MHz ddr2. i know this will no longer be a 1:1 ratio but that is okay. can you guys help me understand if this will work or not with the ram and mobo. here is some pc8500 that im looking at. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148070

a note...I have bios version 0803 on this board. i know you recommend 0401 but the version i am running seems to OC my chip okay. I have trouble getting past 1622MHz fsb right now and I am a bit dissapointed with that as I believe I should be able to get higher. I dont know how big a "fsb hole" should be. I tried to keep bumping the fsb up in hopes that i was in a hole but no luck.

Hell yes you can use 1066 memory in that board! .. Just unlink it like i said and set it to run at 1066. If you get some decent sticks you might be able to get them up to 1200mhz. Crucial Ballistix / Team Xtreme / G Skill HZ are all known to hit 1200 mhz. I tried that bios you are using and it was the pits for my chip E4300.. so i went back to 0401. The p5n-e sli is good for about 475mhz FSB before it craps out.


The ram you have now will do 1000 mhz easy.. Set the ram to 1000 mhz and your voltage for the memory to 2.17 and your chipset voltage to 1.5 volts.. I am willing to bet you will boot with your ram at 1000mhz.

Also make sure you have everything that says spread spectrum disabled ..
disable intel speed step and then is one that is called Execute Bit Disable.. it is enabled by default .. you want to disable that to get stable over clock.

ive always read that executable bit should be enabled. why disable it? also my spread spectrum is disabled, speed step is enabled. i enabled speed step because it conserves power...when you get your system stable you should enable it, but disable during the OC process until you are stable. also you should disable your vanderpool thing, it is enabled by default. also, disable anything you arent using like onboard audio and the jmicron thing.

ill try 1000MHz with 2.2V and NBV at 1.5V. are the heatspreaders good enough for 1000MHz on that ram?

update
it booted to 1000MHz and timings of 4-4-4-12 2T. what settings(clock rate and timings) do you run? also, i left executable disable bit enabled and its still stable.

Well when i was seeking out my max overclock the execute bit would give me a blue screen when running orthos stress test... disabled it and all was well.. I leave speed stepping off as well... The throttling back it does annoys me ... The G Skill I am running are at 1000 mhz 4-4-4-12 timings as well.. 2.17 volts ... And to me stable is being able to run orthos small FFT for 8 hours with out crashing.

i agree with the stable part. however, running small ffts mainly stresses cpu and not ram. i like to use OCCT, Orthos, and Prime to test. I havent had the time to test yet but I will. so far I can play games at the new ram settings. so i suppose i will just stick with this ram instead of upgrading to the pc8500.

ughh.. I meant to type blend stress test with orthos. Prime is a good one also ... I was thinking max cpu overclock and then you would use small fft test to stress the cpu only.. You might be able to get the ram even higher with looser timings ... But then your sacrificing one for the other .. Good luck!

yea and OCCT is nice because it can tell if you are stable in 1 hour.