Upgrade advice needed

[foxmobouser]

Need some advice.

Upgrading to a E8400, can I get 4ghz or close to that with ddr2-800 or should i go for:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145043&Tpk=TWIN2X2048-8500C5D

Yes there probably are better things to upgrade to but wife will kill me if i spend any more moolah

Any thoughts?

[raidersforever01]

My old A-data's could hit 1000mhz without touching the voltage. I am not sure how high you can go with yours but if they can OC to 1000 you should be able to get 4.0ghz on the e8400 with a small cpu voltage bump at 500mhz fsb. Are you going to be running those Ballistics 667 you will never make it with those.

[foxmobouser]

Thx,
The Crutial Ballistics DDR2-667 are already in another system, using OCZ 4x1GB 2T.

Did notice a performance/speed drop with 2T setting due to the 4 sticks compared to the 1T I had before with the only 2x1 GB. Never tried to OC them so dont know how much the OCZ will do.

I kinda prefer tighter memory settings and 1T command rate and 1:1 ratio.

The dominator runs 5-5-5-15ish 2T, would It run 1T at 1:1 or should I best be looking for some other memory.

[raidersforever01]

My math is all jacked up you just need a fsb of about 450 to get 4.0ghz so just a 900mhz on the memory for 1:1.

My OCZ platinums hit 900 with slightly looser timings but at the same time i only run them at 1.9v instead of 2.1v. The only reason why i have them at 736mhz is because i am running them 1:1. Your mileage might vary so i am not sure what your sticks will do.

You can probably tighten those timings on the dominator if your going to run them 1:1 since they will only be running around 900mhz.

[trueg50]

I don't know why your worrying about ratio's, you just run the RAM unlinked and there is no issue.

Also, you are correct 1T and low latency is vastly superior on an Nvidia platform, compared to high-frequency.

[foxmobouser]

Ok now that I've upgraded there seems to be another issue, the 2 out of 4 1gb sticks of OCZ are not taking well to being overclocked to 888 at my current timmings. Loosening em dont help it runs but wont pass orthos and bsods. Still gonna try the other pair later to see if they hold up. Question is am I missing out on performance due to the cpu:dram ratio 10:9 instead of the 1:1. I plan on staying at 4GHz and is there any good cheap >800MHZ memory with minimum 4-4-4 timings? BTW ima too lazy to go search neweg now :help:

[Kougar]

Fox, 10:9 ratio?? You are using an NVIDIA board, unlink the memory and instead use asynchronus mode to run the RAM at the default speeds regardless of your CPU overclock.

If you want to keep using synchronus mode, make sure you are using 2T timings and 5-5-5-15. Extremely little memory will do 1066Mhz @ 4-4-4-12-2T, and all of it takes very high volts as well

[foxmobouser]

Fox, 10:9 ratio?? You are using an NVIDIA board, unlink the memory and instead use asynchronus mode to run the RAM at the default speeds regardless of your CPU overclock.

If you want to keep using synchronus mode, make sure you are using 2T timings and 5-5-5-15. Extremely little memory will do 1066Mhz @ 4-4-4-12-2T, and all of it takes very high volts as well

My setup is in my sig.
I was using unlinked:
FSB (QDR): 1778
Mem (DDR): 800
Mem Voltage: set at 2.1
for the 10:9 ratio(link in my sig to pic)

I dont want to use 2T because it decreases performance on my system.

The thing is these two OCZ ddr2-6400 platinum rev2 sticks wont do 4-4-4-12-1T at 888Mhz overclock althou I did try loose timings with 2 T and was getting crashes on mem stress tests in orthos. Maybe its just the sticks that are not too good

[Kougar]

You'll be hard pressed to find memory that will run 4-4-4-12 very far beyond 800Mhz, let alone do so at 1T.

If you are running your RAM unlinked, then why is it overclocked?

Unlinked mode is designed to run your RAM at default speeds... if you simply want to overclock your RAM, then you'll be wanting premium kits and using 2.1-2.4v on them to get those kind of settings. You would be doing well just to be able to run 4-4-4-12 1T @ 800MHz without raising the voltage much.

[foxmobouser]

Thanks for explaining that :beerchug:

That does kinda bring me back to the starting point of the issue.
Thinking that if I have to run the OCZ ram at 5-5-5- or even at 2T, I might as well just go with the Dominator pc-8500 or some other 8500 ram and have it downclocked a bit to maintain a 1:1 cpu:fsb ratio.

The question now is weather the 680i LT mobo will recognise that type of ram or will i need to flash it with the full 680i bios?

[foxmobouser]

Beginning a continuous self-test to check your computer.
Press Stop to end this test.
Test 1, 4000 Lucas-Lehmer iterations of M19922945 using 1024K FFT length.
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.
Torture Test ran 0 minutes 41 seconds - 1 errors, 0 warnings.

Starting to think OCZ is really bad, no mater what I try linked, unlinked, low mem volts, high mem volts, low latencies, high latencys it always fails the Orthos memory stress test.

[Kougar]

First, the 680i LT will not have any issues recognizing the RAM, although you likely will need to manually set the timngs.

As far as Prime95 goes, those errors can also result from an unstable CPU overclock. It sounds like your CPU overclock isn't fully stable.

[foxmobouser]

Well both orthos and prime95 cpu only stress tests work ok, I havent had them run for more than 3hours, but up to 3 its ok. When i run only the memory stress or the mixed one i get a BSOD in a matter of few minutes
with Memory management issue or IRQL........

I've read a few threads that this can be due to some bad drivers aside from memory problems.

[ol'norton]

Well both orthos and prime95 cpu only stress tests work ok, I havent had them run for more than 3hours, but up to 3 its ok. When i run only the memory stress or the mixed one i get a BSOD in a matter of few minutes
with Memory management issue or IRQL........

I've read a few threads that this can be due to some bad drivers aside from memory problems.
It sounds like a memory problem to me.
Those kits are rated 4-4-4-15 2T @ 800 when used as a 2gig kit.
And as a 2gig kit they will probably do around 920/930 cas#4 (I've had a few kits & they all did that) but when you go to 4gig, you have to slow them down. Try these timings & see if they are stable, if so you can try and tighten them up a bit.
tCL 5
tRTC 4
tRP4
tRAS 18
CpC 2T
tRC 24
tRFC 45
tWR 5
tWTR 9
tRRD 3
RMS 7.8us
tRTW 5
tRDRD 3
tWRWR 2
And maybe bump your SPP voltage a bit.

[foxmobouser]

Wow Wow Wow

that is freekin amazing dude thx

Seems like i ignored some of the settings and left them on auto, i suspect that might have been one of the prob. Anyways i used those settings on my current config didn't have all options avail through bios so used ntools dydamic bios to set some of them and boom ddr 1066.7 hits me in da face, ran orthos for 45 min without a flinch, turned memory down to match my 4.0 cpu overclock at 1:1. Gonna run some tests and try tightening the timings.

Big thanks yourock:

[trueg50]

There's your issue.

You should NEVER EVER EVER overclock anything but your GPU with software. It is a bad idea, and not terribly effective.

"Unlinked" just tells the board "OK, I am going to set the FSB to speed x, and memory to speed Y, find me a ratio that matches".

On Nvidia boards it is much much much better to have a chip with high-FSB, and having low speed, low latency, and 1T memory. I used to run an E6400 with an 1800 mhz FSB, with the RAM at 850mhz 4-4-4-12, and 1T, and my memory bandwidth (via everest) was in the 11 gb/s range.

Also, you need to run Orthos or Prime for at least 24 hours for it to be considered stable.

[Robfactory]

I have 2x2gb OCZ Reapers 8500 and it's running at Div 5:6 5-5-5-12 2.1v @ 1081.
I'm hitting 4050ghz.

[foxmobouser]

I reached a 4000.5 stable clock under 1.34V, proc can do more but would have to bump up the voltage over 1.36 and I dont want to do that so it dont crap out on me too soon.

[the_dope_chaud]

thats the sweet spot right there.
A few of those chips have already died with voltages considered ok for 65nm, I'm sure you all know by now.
so I would not push it more for 24/7

When you play with 4 stick ram or go for 1066 mhz or more, you have to check ALL you ram timings, subtimings can be the difference between stable and no post.

[Robfactory]

Is it stable?

[foxmobouser]

Is it stable?

Yep running 4.0 24/7.

[davidmn]

I don't want to restart PlayPod that often. Ten minutes is not enough to evaluate the product.