Should I get ddr 333 or 400

[drunken_master]

I'm in the UK and can get some kingmax or samsung ddr333 for around £90 or some kingmax, tinybga ddr400 for £110. I odn't know if I should get the ddr400. There has been price drops lately in prices of ram, should i wait a few weeks? I have a epox 8k3a+ so can take full advantage of the ram speed. this is al 256MB by the way.

[EMC2]

If it is true Samsung DDR333 memory (the DIMM itself is made by Samsung, not just the memory modules), I would suggest you get the Samsung. Most users have been able to get it in the 200Mhz FSB range with fairly agressive memory timings. True Samsung DIMMs with have a sticker on them with Samsung's name, a date code, Samsung's part numbering, and usually made in Korea labelling.

[drunken_master]

Yeah, I can get both, but in reviews i have seen the kingmax ddr333 get to past 200Mhz, so i was expecting even more form the ddr400. I think i'll go with the PC3200, because they also give me braggin' rights as not many people have it yet. I jsut don't know if i hsould get this now or wait to see if prices drop even more? Plus i have other upgrades to make, PSU mainly, cd writer possibly.

[EMC2]

Just FYI - and there is no positive confirmation from Kingmax - but their DDR400 is [i]rumored[/b] to be the same die used for their DDR333, just tested for the higher speeds.

And if you want to back off the timings a tad, I've seen the Samsung at up to 215Mhz

[drunken_master]

Yeah, I've heard both of those rumours too. They are both correct, confirmed by kingmax too, but its the other way around, they made the new ddr333 too good, and it was rated at 5ns, ie pc3200, and after the first few batches were made they added on die code to make it only run at 6ns. Now they are just making it 5ns again. This means that if you brought some og the kingmax when it first came out, you might actually have some ddr400. Lucky gits, I want to see a proper review of this kingmax, to see how high it will go. Its probably better to get though, as it is 5ns ram, and as the samsung(guessing here) probably needed higher voltage to run at those speeds, this stuff will probably be safer.

[Brad]

well, I've had samsung pc2700 at 227mhz fsb, 2.5/2.5/2.5 without any problems. 2.9v

I like samsung ram, but of course you may get a dud that can't go above 200, while the kingmax is guarenteed to run at 200

[jtroutma]

Drunk:

Answering your question on WHEN....

I would suggest you wait a few more weeks. I am not sure hoe things work over there in the UK but over here in the States, RAM prices almost always drop to their lowest prices ever durring the summer months. Say July or even early August, I can usually find RAM for 25-50% cheaper than any other time during the year.

This is just what I have observed.....

[drunken_master]

Ok, you warned me, well not warned but i should have listened to you anyway.

Lets see, 195Mhz not attainable, graphics problems GF3 doesn't like this FSB, so i restart and turn speed down. Uh oh, the last crash in win startup(at the 195Mhz) cause it to die, reapir install, 30 mins later and, 185Mhz, booter(yippee), sisoft score 2200(eh, thats low), crashed on exit of sisoft. Uh oh.
Tried 180Mhz, same si soft score, crashed again. Tried 175Mhz, stable for 3 hours but got bored, this is guarenteed 200MHz, if it doens;' work at least at 185Mhz when gaphics were fine then its going back.
I'll just recheck it doesn't work at 190Mhz, boom, 30 mins later after 2nd reinstall of win in 1.5 hours and I'm now writing these forum meesages to say how crap it is and also an email to where i got it from and a friend who i know can overclock his epox 8k3a+ to way above 200Mhz with pc3000 and pc27000 ram. My mobo doesn't seem to have 1/6 divider, but my friend got well above 200Mhz(219 i think). How was his graphics card working, anyway I'm not best pleased.

To be fair the package it arrived in was quite battered but was in about 1 foot diameter of bubble wrap and apon inspection no damge. RMA it, might get another one to check on it but think I'll get me something else.


Could this all be down to a crap PSU that was already at its limit?

[Brad]

cause the 8k3a+ also has a 1/3 agp divider at 200mhz

[drunken_master]

Really, do all the bios's have it. I've got the 2403 beta and,well, i didn't really look for it. Anyway when I reduced the speed to 185Mhz the graphics stopped being stupid but the ram itself was unstable so the ram wouldn't do 200+Mhz anyway. I can't believe they released this ram. ITs worse than the first batch of ddr333 they released with 5ns chips, how could they of got worse??

I'm baffled, anyway some samsung ddr333 which people have hit 220 with is gonna be on its way soon, $40 to you lot, £65. Pretty god damned good. Also those directron units, I can't get them sent here, delivery is about £50 for a £50 psu. But i think i've found a very similar unbranded generic unit, I'#m not totally convince then aren't directron units, there would be no point branding them as no one here has heard of them, they are an old been here for like 10 years shop, not a brand new top of the range over clockers store.

SWEET.

[ECUPirate]

speaking of FSBs and dividers, I can't find anything of the sort on my giga-byte GA-7DXR . I'm no overclocking whizz, so any pointers would be good. Right now I've got a simple multiplier adjustment. Everything goes to hell when I try changing the FSB, even a little bit. Help!!?

[drunken_master]

Boards have preset dividers that kick in at certain fsb's. As in 1/4 at 133 fsb gives 33Mhz PCI speed. THey are built to give PCI 33Mhz and AGP 66Mhz. On my epox i also have a 1/5 divider so it resets to 33/66Mhz at 166Mhz, but at 200Mhz which I'm trying to hit the speeds are 40/80. The PCI slots are handling this extra speed, only a soundcard on them, but my AGP card is running my GF3 at past its speced speed and is causing all kinds of artifacts and crashing. With a beta bios for my board I can get the speeds writen in the bios so i can check what dividers I have. I don't know how many other boards have this option. Give us some more info on your system and we'll try to help you out. Or e-mail me.

[DigitalChaos]

where did you get a bios for the 8k3a+ that does 1/6 pci divider???

mine only does 1/5

[drunken_master]

No, there isn't one that I'm aware of, I was saying both that they need one. Also that they probably are doing one as the latest bios extends options for fsb to 255Mhz, there is no way that any graphics/sound/network/tv cards or hard drives are going to run at this speed without at leats 1/6 divider, to et 255Mhz i would expect to need a 1/7 aswell. This is why I think they must be planning on adding it in soon.

[ECUPirate]

Gigabyte GA-7DXR is my mobo. Athlon 1333 (266FSB), Crucial 2100.

[drunken_master]

Well, from what I can tell, you should be able to clock that 1.33 athlon quite a lot. In the bios if you have multiplier or fsb adjustment just keep trying to raise either one slightly then you will have to find the sweet spot for your system. You may have to raise the voltage to your processor to maintain stability, I think you need to connect your L7 ridges using a pencil, do a search here or on google and you'll find plenty of articles on how to do it.


What heatsink do you have, if your using stock I would recommend buying a better heat sink as higher speeds and voltage will increase the temp. I use a cheapo taisol 760 and find it does a great job of keeping my 1.4@1,6Ghz cool(43C full load). You might also need some extra case cooling to get the extra hot air out. I've put a better(though not much) thermaltake fan onto the taisol because the stock onwe is a little crummy. You should, for noise reasons, buy a 60mm to 80m adaptor and put a high CFM low noise 80mm fan on to the taisol(I'm doing this soon as my whole case is just too loud.


Sorry if you know any of this but you said you were newbie.

Any more q's and I'll try to help.


Pointers, if trying to raise FSb your ram is amongst the best so should go higher easily, if you have voltage adjustment for ram you may want to raise that to 2.7v. Try to raise the fsb first to find the maximum attainable and then adjust the mulitplier to a number that allows a over clock that tis stable and not to hot.

[ECUPirate]

I'm water-cooled. I've not had any luck with any FSB adjustments. multiplier adjustments are no problem. I just don't know... I'll work on it more later.. thanks.