Which is best Micron D9 ram out of these?

[robodude666]

Sorry to bump, but no one has any idea of really good overclockable DDR2-800 2x 1GB kits?

[Capper]

Been busy all day, sorry.


Its really hard to say, no kit is guaranteed past its rated speed, but i've personally never been disappointed with Corsair, OCZ, or Mushkin when it comes to overclockability.
Another issue to keep in mind is that these kits are all very well screened, which is why you are seeing a lot of DDR2-1000,1066, etc.......so the lower kits are pretty well sorted, with most having little headroom (if they did, they wouldn't be marketed as PC2-6400, they would be marketed faster.
anyway, I'm tired, not feeling well, and probably rambling a bit.

If you are looking for a DDR2-800 kit with headroom, look at those kits rated at 4-4-4-12, or so, you can always gain a little O/C out of them by simply loosening the CAS latency to 5

[Quakindude]

My OCZ DDR2-800 Rev @ ram went to 875Mhz at 4-4-4-15 timings. It was rated at 5-5-5-15, so that was pretty decent.

I'm currently reviewing some Corsair Dominator DDR2-8500 sticks. The timings won't get much tighter than stock, maybe due to the EPP, but it can overclock fairly well so far. Corsair, OCZ, Mushkin and Crucial all make excellent ram. I know what you're talking about with the D9 Micron Chips. They've got among the best reputation wise on the 'Net for overclocking and a lot of hard-core guys swear by them. Me personally, I'm not into benchmarking out side of what's required for my work here at HardwareLogic. So getting the best bang for my buck is my primary concern for personal use, tight timings is second and overclockability is third. Although timings and overclocking are about equal for me. If I HAD to choose, I like tighter timings.

[robodude666]

Originally Posted by Capper

Been busy all day, sorry.


Its really hard to say, no kit is guaranteed past its rated speed, but i've personally never been disappointed with Corsair, OCZ, or Mushkin when it comes to overclockability.
Another issue to keep in mind is that these kits are all very well screened, which is why you are seeing a lot of DDR2-1000,1066, etc.......so the lower kits are pretty well sorted, with most having little headroom (if they did, they wouldn't be marketed as PC2-6400, they would be marketed faster.
anyway, I'm tired, not feeling well, and probably rambling a bit.

If you are looking for a DDR2-800 kit with headroom, look at those kits rated at 4-4-4-12, or so, you can always gain a little O/C out of them by simply loosening the CAS latency to 5

Its alright man. No worries :) I know running a site isn't easy and takes up a lot of time. Your doing a great job though.

Originally Posted by Quakindude

My OCZ DDR2-800 Rev @ ram went to 875Mhz at 4-4-4-15 timings. It was rated at 5-5-5-15, so that was pretty decent.

I'm currently reviewing some Corsair Dominator DDR2-8500 sticks. The timings won't get much tighter than stock, maybe due to the EPP, but it can overclock fairly well so far. Corsair, OCZ, Mushkin and Crucial all make excellent ram. I know what you're talking about with the D9 Micron Chips. They've got among the best reputation wise on the 'Net for overclocking and a lot of hard-core guys swear by them. Me personally, I'm not into benchmarking out side of what's required for my work here at HardwareLogic. So getting the best bang for my buck is my primary concern for personal use, tight timings is second and overclockability is third. Although timings and overclocking are about equal for me. If I HAD to choose, I like tighter timings.

Which ram would you recommend for being good bang for the buck, but still has overclockability and tight timings?

I found this ram on the egg:

Newegg.com - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

and this one:

Newegg.com - Patriot 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

both run at 4-4-4-12 and about the same voltage (2.1 for gskill and 2.2 for pat.

Are those any good? I read a few reviews on the G.Skill ram and it got to like 1GHz and seems to work good.

You think this ram would work well on the ECS KA3 MVP?

Awww man, the G.Skill ram has a warranty for 273.788189 years That sucks >_> =P

P.S. What is the name of the mod which puts the page's title as the URL's text? Its freakin' awesome! I love it!!

[Quakindude]

Here's the deal, either of those memory kits would be great. Me personally, I'd go with the cheaper of the two. One guy says he hit an overclock of 900Mhz on his G.Skill kit and i don't doubt that one bit. However, the guy with the Patriot kit that said he hit 1350Mhz is full of crap. Both of those memory kits have good prices, Lifetime warranties and good timings. Just do a Google search for reviews of both of those kits and then get one. I don't think you'll be disappointed with either of them. If you put me on the spot to make a recommendation, I'd say the Patriot kit as I've dealt with G.Skill's customer service in the past. That was 4 years or more ago, so maybe they've improved, but they made me jump through too many hoops to replace defective ram.

[robodude666]

Alright, thanks man :) I will see what replies I get from another forum. More opinions the better!

I made a little spreadsheet in excel with overclocks reviewers got on the ECS KA3 MVP board.

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/3190/ka3ocmc0.jpg
Image removed and replaced with link. Forums was shrinking it :(

Everyone seemed to use Corsair memory except for HL. And Blake's overclock was about 3x higher than everyone elses.

Could you say this is directly, or semi-directly linked to the fact he used Micron D9s? What chips does corsair use most often?

I found someone selling these:

Newegg.com - mushkin eXtreme Performance 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) with EPP Profile Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

for $150 and they are pretty much new. Could I be able to get these to 800MHz on the ECS KA3 MVP? And, does it even matter since I will have to underclock them to 667 or 533 to get higher HTT and higher CPU overclock?

They are 3-3-3-10 which as I understand is pretty good and can get a bit tighter.

[gvblake22]

Don't get so hung up on the chips used on each specific kit. Even within a line known to use a particular memory IC, I've seen it very. Think of it kindof like trying to get a certain CPU stepping and/or week... Nothing is guaranteed.

As Capper mentioned, having high bandwidth isn't going to make nearly as much of a difference as running the core speed of your processor faster. See these charts for more information on memory bandwidth and latency performance numbers (and notice the small to no difference between them).

Basically what I'm trying to say is that you really won't need more than DDR2-800 memory whether you are overclocking an AM2 system or Core 2 Duo. So if you are willing to drop nearly $300 on a memory kit, I say get a good low latency DDR2-667 or DDR2-800 kit of your desired capacity. With how fast DDR2 memory speeds are now days, getting highly overclockable memory isn't as necessary as it was in the days of DDR. Any decent, low latency DDR2-667 or DDR2-800 memory kit will undoubtedly have at least a little overclocking headroom in it, but it's already running so fast that you can make use of the the wide range of CPU:RAM dividers and find a happy medium.

The Micron D9 chips were (and I guess still are) desireable because they are usually quite versatile allowing you to run lower speeds at very tight timings or high speeds at looser (but still decent) timings. But again, just because a certain kit is supposed to have a certain memory IC doesn't mean it will! And even if it does, there is still no guarantee that it will be a stellar overclocker.

Does all that jabbering make any sense?

[robodude666]

Thanks for the jabbering and help guys. Thanks for the chat on AIM too.

With Blake's help, we managed to pick out these buggers:

Newegg.com - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

Not very expensive and are Micron D9s. They are about $50 cheaper than the Team Group ram.

Thanks a lot for your help guys!

[RangerXLT8]

HEck that Mushkin listed is a 100 bucks less than I payed for my Mushkin D9 Fat Bodies in 2005... lol

[stinger608]

excellent choice robodude!!!!!