Fast, cheap DDR2

mb2 · Post by **mb2** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 10:21 am

Whilst there is no RAM section i am posting this here to draw on the wide experience of the membership here....
i am looking to get some DDR2 memory for a new intel system (i'm a student (UK) so am money pressured). Can anyone recommend some cheap memory which would allow me to get the best FSB with a 1:1 memory ratio?

lodestar · Post by **lodestar** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 1:15 pm

You first port of call should be to the web site of the mainboard manufacturer, where you should find a Memory QVL (Qualified Vendors List). This is a list of memory at various speeds which has been tested to work with your mainboard.

I run DDR2 memory at 1:1, it is Kingston HyperX running at 1066 (with a 1066 FSB Core 2 Duo) and running Vista I have a completely stable system. This memory is currently priced at Â£29 for 2Gb in the UK, which is cheap enough.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 4:44 pm

Can anyone recommend some cheap memory which would allow me to get the best FSB with a 1:1 memory ratio?

Adding to what Lodestar has said..... we need more info.

What motherboard, what CPU, are you overclocking.??? These questions and more will need to be answered before we can really assist you.

Otherwise I would suggest something that does not boast itself a "overclocking RAM", and does not have a voltage above 1.2v, has a reputable brand and a good warranty.

This for example is the kind of thing that would be suitable (not a direct suggestion, and on offer).

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... =MY-023-GS

Andy

mb2 · Post by **mb2** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 6:16 am

I intentionally left the question quite open...

andy, thanks, i assume u mean 2.1v... (?)

-how significant are memory timings to the general performance of applications in a core duo system with ddr2?
[edit:]it seems not a huge lot
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2813
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2810

-whaat about responsiveness?

mb2 · Post by **mb2** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 4:30 am

...am looking at the GA-G31M-S2L, and e5200 (not looking to max it out, will back off the multiplier perhaps, but want highest FSB for Â£).

it seems the board will supply a max of 2.2v to the memory. So i am looking for the best OC speed with laxed timings (5-x-x-x?) for the least money (around Â£50 for 2x2gb?) with no more than 2.2v.
can anyone help?

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:21 am

lodestar wrote:I run DDR2 memory at 1:1, it is Kingston HyperX running at 1066 (with a 1066 FSB Core 2 Duo) and running Vista I have a completely stable system.

You are confusing the clockspeed with the data rate. That is actually memory at 1:2 ratio (266 MHz FSB clock/533 MHz memory clock.) I am running mine at 1:1 (400 MHz FSB/400 MHz memory). My data rates are 1600MHz FSB/DDR2 800. With 1:1 the FSB bandwidth is equal to the memory bandwidth. With any higher ratio the extra memory bandwidth cannot be utilized by the CPU. With 1:2 the FSB can only use half the memory bandwidth. However, 1:2 is the best ratio for single channel DDR2.

mb2 wrote:it seems the board will supply a max of 2.2v to the memory. So i am looking for the best OC speed with laxed timings (5-x-x-x?) for the least money (around Â£50 for 2x2gb?) with no more than 2.2v.
can anyone help?

The 1.8V specified memory is generally the best. I have had only one stick of 1066 (Muskin rated at 2.1V if remember). The higher voltage sticks should be regarded as cheaper memory that is overclocked. In other words it is worth less than 1.8V memory of the same ratings.

Most motherboard won't give you the 1:1 option with these "800 MHz" FSB CPUs. If 1:1 isn't available the next lowest divider is 4:5 (2:3, 5:8, 3:5, and 1:2 being the other options). Hopefully the 4:5 divider is available.

So what are the possible overclocking limits with the 4:5 ratio?
320 MHz FSB = 400 MHz memory (DDR2 800)

E5200 = 12.5x 320 MHz = 4 GHz
E2220 = 12x 320 MHz = 3.84 GHz
E2200 = 11x 320 MHz = 3.52 GHz
E2180 = 10x 320 MHz = 3.2 GHz

3.2 GHz is doable with the E2xx0 chips but it requires additional voltage. The E2180 actually looks fine with a cheap motherboard that lacks the 1:1 ratio and cheap DDR2 800 memory.

DDR2 1066 would let you run a faster FSB which would help--427 MHz FSB = 533 MHz memory (DDR2 1066), but it would probably be slower than getting the 1:1 ratio working with DDR2 800 and a 400 MHz FSB. FSB speed is the important factor especially with small cache chips. Some motherboards are capable of running 600 MHz FSB clocks, but I should also note that the FSB also seems to consume a significant amount of power.

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:50 am

Generally speaking, the performance improvement of DDR2 1066 over DDR2 800 is at most 4% on the same CPU. I'd rather get high capacity RAM instead of "ultra speed" ones.

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:23 am

mb2 wrote:...am looking at the GA-G31M-S2L, and e5200 (not looking to max it out, will back off the multiplier perhaps, but want highest FSB for Â£).

You could look into doing the BSEL mod to fake a 1066 FSB CPU giving the 1:1 ratio. The E5200 will probably boot fine at 12.5x 267 MHz = 3333 MHz. Then you can adjust the CPU multiplier and FSB speed in the BIOS.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:45 am

OCUK have some offers on RAM - they end tomorrow (Tuesday 28th).

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/thisweek.php

The OCZ 800Mhz stuff is very cheap, but its running at MAX voltage 2.1-2.2v

For Â£5 more you can get the Kingston stuff that has slightly better timings (un-important) but runs at more sensible voltages.

And the G-Skill although a lot more money is quite a good price right now, it like the Kingston runs at a more sensible voltage and has good timings.

An alternative (use depends on whether you will be overclocking, and whether your motherboard can run this RAM at its intended speed) is the same stuff I have got. Its a bit cheaper than 1066, but a lot faster than 800.

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(32155)OCZ ... -DDR2.aspx

Part No. MEMOCZ2P10004GK

The real question will be 800, 1000 or 1066. You will be better off dropping the multiplier and increasing the BUS speed whilst using faster RAM even if the CPU clock is the same as was originally intended (i.e. not overclocked). The current lineup of Intel CPU's overclock very well, but I wouldnt suggest overclocking your motherboards chipset or the RAM whilst trying to get a free speed boost as you will likely have severe problems. This is basically what I have done, I got an E7200 *800 FSB CPU) and overclocked it to 333FSB, whilst the RAM is running at 1,000 Mhz, this is a ratio of 5:4. Ideally I would have got 1066 RAM but at the time the cost was a massive difference.

Andy

lodestar · Post by **lodestar** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:48 am

Gigabyte, as one would expect, do not list any QVL memory for the GA-G31M-S2L faster than 800 speed. However, if you take for example Kingston HyperX 2GB (1x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 800MHz which is on the list, this costs around Â£26. You could of course overclock this and hope it works, or you could buy the 1066 memory for another Â£3-Â£4 for 2Gb and be sure it will run faster.

But what all this ignores is that faster memory runs hotter. And if your aim is to have a quiet PC as well then the ability to do that is comprised because memory is running faster and hotter for essentially very little benefit in computer performance.

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 8:34 am

andyb wrote:This is basically what I have done, I got an E7200 *800 FSB CPU) and overclocked it to 333FSB, whilst the RAM is running at 1,000 Mhz, this is a ratio of 5:4. Ideally I would have got 1066 RAM but at the time the cost was a massive difference.

Any memory divider ratio above 1:1 can't get you extra bandwidth because the FSB will be slower than the memory. A 333 MHz FSB means at best you have DDR2 667 MHz usable bandwidth. You won't see much benefit from 1066 memory until you reach 533FSB (which is doable).

My E7200 ran just fine at 3.8 GHz on my GA-G31M-S2L with dirt cheap AData PC2 800. The OP wants to run a cheaper 800 FSB processor. The E2140 on this and most other motherboards was limited to ~2.56 GHz.--with DDR2 640 memory performance even though it was actually running the memory at full DDR2 800 speed. You can see why this is a fail in the performance/Watt department.

Ch0z3n · Post by **Ch0z3n** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 10:26 am

Moral of the story: Listen to QuietOC.

lodestar: disclaimer: I don't have much experience with Intel chips so it is entirely possible I am lying to you. I am about 100% sure your FSB isn't 1066mhz. If I remember correctly, Intel CPU's have "quad pumped" FSB, meaning that the FSB can use 4 packets of info per cycle. Therefore, your FSB is actually 266mhz. Also, your memory frequency is 533mhz. The ram is DDR meaning it uses both sides of the cycle and 533*2=1066. Now, it gets even more fun with dual channel ram, I think that dual channel basically doubles the bandwidth of the ram, so now your ram is doing 4 things (ddr * dual channel) @ 533mhz where as your FSB is only 4 things @ 266mhz. If I understand correctly, for you to be running 1:1 synchronous you would need to up your FSB to 533mhz (and therefore lower the CPU multiplier since I really doubt your system will POST at 2x stock frequency (and probably increase the voltage too))

This is one of the situations where AMD systems are much easier. You don't have to worry about FSB:Mem frequency ratios as they don't have a FSB and the memory controller is integrated. Granted, it also makes overclocked a bit more of a balancing act since memory frequency is controlled by core frequency and CPU multiplier. Stock core frequency of AMD chips is 200mhz (and usually use much higher multipliers, mine is 14). So, choosing DDR 800 (400mhz) as the speed of your ram in your BIOS means that (on an even multiplier) the ram speed is 2x the core frequency, If I upped my core frequency to 220mhz will still keeping an even multiplier (10, 12, 14 etc, doesn't matter which) my ram would actually become DDR 880 (440mhz). It does get much more complicated with you get into odd or fractional (13.5, 14.5) multipliers, but luckily there are useful tables floating around and you can always get to the guess and check method once you have figured out your max cpu and max ram frequencies and are just trying to get the highest combination

QuietOC: I agree with your statement about 1.8v memory, but I think it is a bit confusing. Well, honestly I think the confusion mainly comes from the marketers since there are so many rated voltages it is hard to tell what is better. Like, is 5-5-5-15 @ 1.8v better than 4-4-4-12 @ 2.2v. Maybe I am wrong and have accidentally always bought decent ram, but isn't all ddr2 800 required by jedec to run certain minimum timings at 1.8v? I think mine are currently 5-5-5-16-21-T2 but I'm at work atm so I can't check.

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 12:31 pm

Ch0z3n wrote:Maybe I am wrong and have accidentally always bought decent ram, but isn't all ddr2 800 required by jedec to run certain minimum timings at 1.8v? I think mine are currently 5-5-5-16-21-T2 but I'm at work atm so I can't check.

I have had a lot of memory trouble with two particular brands: Kingston and ASUS--as in Kingston memory in ASUS motherboards. Good stuff: A-Data, Apacer, Corsair, Mushkin. If I were to get some memory today I'd probably get this Mushkin kit.

Ch0z3n · Post by **Ch0z3n** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 1:05 pm

I have patriot memory in a gigabyte board

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:14 pm

Any memory divider ratio above 1:1 can't get you extra bandwidth because the FSB will be slower than the memory. A 333 MHz FSB means at best you have DDR2 667 MHz usable bandwidth. You won't see much benefit from 1066 memory until you reach 533FSB (which is doable).

I will benchmark my system with my RAM @ 666, and at 1000, any suggestions of a benchmark.?

I have had a lot of memory trouble with two particular brands: Kingston and ASUS--as in Kingston memory in ASUS motherboards. Good stuff: A-Data, Apacer, Corsair, Mushkin. If I were to get some memory today I'd probably get this Mushkin kit.

So did I, but I also had problems with Corsair, Crucial, and Samsung/Nanya original, one of the reasons I dont use ASUS motherboards any more.

Andy

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 4:07 am

Ignore that last post (at least the bit about me benchmarking, I found an XbitLabs review of such things, including overclocking, on page 8 ).

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory ... guide.html

QuetOC is bang on the money

I will get around to overclocking my own system some more (not in terms of CPU clock speed, but increasing the BUS speed and dropping the multiplier so I can gain some benefit from my RAM.

Andy

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 7:25 am

I always get memory that is JDEC specified and rated at the correct voltage. Everything else is just overclocked versions of JDEC spec memory chips.

Currently the fastest DDR2 JDEC spec memory modules are DDR2 800 at 1.8v. I really like the A-Data 2x2gb package, 4gb total, (the ones with pink ramsinks). Been really stable for me and at a very good price.

check newegg, i think they are around $70

line · Post by **line** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 7:40 am

Kingston currently sells a kit of 2x2GB DDR2 800MHz 1.8v CL5 modules for $41 shipped. This is the best price I've seen without rebates.

http://shop.kingston.com/PartsInfo.asp? ... 0D2N5K2/4G

lodestar · Post by **lodestar** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 10:45 am

Ch0z3n wrote:If I understand correctly, for you to be running 1:1 synchronous you would need to up your FSB to 533mhz (and therefore lower the CPU multiplier since I really doubt your system will POST at 2x stock frequency (and probably increase the voltage too))

Both AMD and Intel have used double and quad-pumped FSBs. You are correct about the calculation for a quad-pumped CPU FSB, that is 266 Mhz *4=1066 Mhz. However it still gives you 1066Mhz effective FSB speed, and performance.

You are also quite right about the memory ratio. The reason that DDR2-1066 has that name is because it handles 1066 million data transfers per second, and will therefore match a CPU FSB of 1066 Mhz in data transfer terms. DDR2-1066 has a memory clock of 266 Mhz, a i/o clock of 533 Mhz and executes 2 data transfers per i/o clock cycle, hence 533 Mhz*2=1066 Mhz. It is also known as PC2-8500; the 8500 refers to the memory bandwidth of 8533 Mb per second.

Similarly, DDR2-800 has a memory clock of 200 Mhz, 400 Mhz i/o clock and has 800 million data transfers per second. Also known as PC2-6400 because it has a bandwidth of 6400 Mb per second.

I use all 4 memory slots on the motherboard, and the system is rock-solid. The only thing I have noticed is that the memory runs quite hot. As has been mentioned by somebody else, this is because 1066 Mhz DDR2 is essentially DDR2-800 overclocked. I suspect Kingston simply bin memory chips based on whether they will do this speed or not.

DDR2-1066 is now only slightly more expensive than DDR2-800. It is a more reliable way of getting faster memory rather than buying slower memory, and hoping it will overclock. Kingston offer DDR2 running at speeds up to 1200 Mhz, but there is a premium involved.

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 12:02 pm

lodestar wrote: You are not quite right about the memory. The reason that DDR2-1066 has that name is because it handles 1066 million data transfers per second, and will therefore match a CPU FSB of 1066 Mhz on a 1:1 ratio.

Yes, a single channel of DDR2-1066 matches an Intel 1066 FSB. But the fastest Intel motherboards have been dual-channel double pumped memory bus since Intel released the dual-DDR "Granite Bay" E7205 chipset and the serial-based Rambus faded into a dark dream.

Your 128-bits at 533 MHz double-data rate are cut in half by a mere 64-bits of quad-data rate 266MHz FSB.

FWIW: AMD's HyperTransport is still just a double-data rate bus. Pretty much everything uses double-data rate buses from DDR to GDDR5. Outside of Intel quad-data rate is pretty rare.

mb2 · Post by **mb2** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 8:49 am

OK, so for 1:1 (clock, and data rate with dual-channel memory), any ddr-2 800 will max out anything up to [4x400]fsb {which is more than enough for my purposes, and heat}.

but, with a [4x200]fsb CPU, the motherboard will not likely allow the 1:1 (clock) memory: ratio.
Q: Are there any good g31 boards which will allow this?, without a physical mod.

[from http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductRe ... %29&Page=2 ]
(SPD) options (dependent on CPU FSB) with E7200 (1066Mhz FSB) are 2.0, 2.5, 3.0 vs. D820 (800Mhz FSB) having 2.66, 3.33, 4.
[email protected] 266x9.5 (had D820)..

assuming dual channel,
Q: how much performance is lost with async memory like this, or is it just a case of giving the same performance of 1:2?
eg. if i were to run 333mhz fsb (unspecified multi), then running with the 2.66 SPD would give me 222mhz (=ddr2-888) memory. Will this give me at least the same performance of having a 2.0 SPD, ie, 166 mhz memory, [negating x-x-x-x timings]???

the best looking memory i have found so far is;
geil value 2x2gb, :

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/productInf ... ShowReview
Â£37 inc VAT.

http://66.102.9.104/translate_c?hl=en&s ... uGV5VbNjpg
review, translated from czech
anyone have any more info or anything they think is a better bet (considering UK prices and availability)

So, if this memory works simliarly to as reviewed, and i don't mind running my memory slightly hotter than would be ideal (for no performance gain), this combination should pose no problems to my overclocking the FSB, and the performance won't be memory-limited. right?

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 9:47 am

mb2 wrote:Q: Are there any good g31 boards which will allow this?, without a physical mod.

I don't know. ASUS has it on their G33 motherboards, but I won't recommend them. Foxconn G33 and Gigabyte G31 I tried didn't have it. I would expect the Biostar T-series might but it sounds like from customer reviews on Newegg it doesn't (though the customer got the BSEL mod working on a Celeron 1200.) ASUS and Abit are the most likely to support it.