# RESOLVED 667 MHz or 800 MHZ ?



## hemants (Nov 20, 2005)

I am planning to buy a core 2 duo e6600 sytem with evga nforce 680i motherbaord

i want to buy 2gb ram, but im unable to decide what speed ram should be...

can my system make full use of the 2gb 800mhz ddr2 ram?


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## 8210GUY (Aug 29, 2006)

Yes, and higher, I'm about to get that board myself, it can take Maximum of 8GB of DDR2 533/667/800/1200MHz SLI-Ready memory.


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## speedster123 (Oct 18, 2006)

Interesting. You prefer that board over dfi or asus? Any reason?


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## 8210GUY (Aug 29, 2006)

Well they had a lot of problems early on, but the latest bios seems to of sorted that, but they are working with Nvidia over the 680i issues so are the 1st to get any solutions\updates, and stick a 10 year warranty on that and you have got good peace of mind in an expensive component


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

hemants said:


> I am planning to buy a core 2 duo e6600 sytem with evga nforce 680i motherbaord
> 
> i want to buy 2gb ram, but im unable to decide what speed ram should be...
> 
> can my system make full use of the 2gb 800mhz ddr2 ram?


If you are going to overclock, go for the 800 MHz RAM. If not, you really won't notice a difference between 533/667/800 MHz RAM.


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## floydfan (Oct 18, 2006)

yep, main reason for choosing ddr2 800 for conroe systems is the lack of a divider lower than 1:1, limiting max fsb to the max of the memory. i think i heard that the rd600 based dfi board could clock memory and fsb independantly, but dont take my word on it.


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## hemants (Nov 20, 2005)

thanks alot for the replies guys,

i was going to go for CORSAIR TWIN2X2048-6400C4 
(MATCHED PAIR 4-4-4-12 240-PIN DDR2 DIMM)

is that a good choice?

i am goin for the evga board because its cheaper and has alot of good reviews, but if you strongly suggest the dfi (havent seen the price or review) or asus (its a bit nore expensive) i shall buy one of those.

i am a multimedia designer, so i use a lot of 3ds max and adobe software. i need RAM that will ensure high performance speeds with that software. 

Also im goin to buy the 8800gts as am into hard core gaming (will see if gtx prices go down , may buy that one) so i donot want my systm performance to get hindered my slow RAM.

i really would like to overclock my components , how do u suggest a newbie should go abput the prcess??


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## hemants (Nov 20, 2005)

*64 bit?*



8210GUY said:


> Yes, and higher, I'm about to get that board myself, it can take Maximum of 8GB of DDR2 533/667/800/1200MHz SLI-Ready memory.


i asume yu r goin to be using the 64bit operating system?


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## hemants (Nov 20, 2005)

TheMatt said:


> If you are going to overclock, go for the 800 MHz RAM. If not, you really won't notice a difference between 533/667/800 MHz RAM.


wont the gaming experience be affected if i have lower ram speed??

what about video editing software and 3ds max, doesnt having a higher RAM speeds affect the performance?


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## 8210GUY (Aug 29, 2006)

I will be getting the same board next week as well, they are working with Nvidia to iron out the 680i bugs so will be the first to release patches etc, the ram appears to be what I an currently running, it is certainly respected ram and does the job, but I will be trying some OCZ ram on the new board when they arrive.
I wont be using 64 bit OS yet though, tried it a few times now and it's fine for what it is, but there are so many things I use that wont run in 64 bit I will be sticking to 32 bit for the time being.


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## hemants (Nov 20, 2005)

the 32 bit version of Windows doesnt recognize more than 4gb rite?? yu sed you'll be maxing out the RAM limit ie.8gb; how do you plan to do that.

i am planning to buy this sytem in late june , so i have a lot of time to decide on the components, do you suggest OCZ RAM isntead of the one tht yur using ?

wat is the main difference in the "pro" version and the "c4" for the corsair twinx?

I would love to overclock the sytem im building.


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## hemants (Nov 20, 2005)

sorry, i ment 2 gb...for the 32bit system...


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## 8210GUY (Aug 29, 2006)

Well heres something for you to think of then, the parts your already thinking of buying are already old and outdated by the time we can buy them lol, the industry moves so fast you don't have a hope of keeping up unless your rich.
So come the time your ready to get this there will be newer\better hardware out, so I suggest use this as a learning curve to get the idea of a good system and then re-apply it when your ready to buy checking out the new releases at that time.

You are correct about xp's 4gig limit, but TBH until 2gig ram strips become affordable you wont get more than 4gig for now anyway, 2gig strips are ridiculously priced, but at least this way round we know the motherboard supports more, so when the time comes that you need it just upgrade the OS and your good to go, steer clear of vista to start with, it's bound to be loaded with problems like xp was when it came out, and the software makers need to produce a lot more 64 bit software before you need to go over to 64 bit IMHO.

TBH not sure about what difference the pro makes, but c4 is it's latency, and the lower the latency the faster the ram, but both sets of ram are good, it's personal choice a lot of the time, but if you want to get into overclocking seriously then your better asking those sort of people for whats hot or not, as they push the limit often till it breaks lol, also remember overclocking can kill your components if you go to badly wrong, and it WILL shorten the life of your equipment for sure, by how much depends by how much and how long you overclock for, hope that helps a bit anyway.


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## hemants (Nov 20, 2005)

i see you chose the nforce 680 motherboard even though your not using the geforce 8 series, do you plan to upgrade the graphics cards?

Also, what aplications do you use that is going to need the 2gb 1066mhz RAM?

Do you have to overclock to get the maximum out of tht RAM??


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## 8210GUY (Aug 29, 2006)

I'm not a gamer so the graphics cards are not really something I am worried about, and at the prices for the new cards I certainly wont be changing them anytime soon.
I'm not an overclocker but have dabbled once, and probably will again, hence getting components that can handle it in readiness of that, but even at stock everything just glides effortlessly.

As to running programs it's extremely varied, I help people with a variety of computer\web\phone problems so I can end up using several programs at one time, anything from web page construction to unlocking or flashing their phones, although I don't do as much with phones these days, but still edit graphics and ringtones for people at times, so there are times where not having 2gig would show, you definitely see the benefit (I do anyway).


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## hemants (Nov 20, 2005)

I asked because I am an extensive user of programs like photoshop and 3ds max ; Matt Modica said that if im not plannin to overclock, there is no need for a 800Mhz or up RAM.

I wanted to know how do you decide what is the maximum RAM speed that your system can utilise fully.

what does SLI ready memory mean?


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## 8210GUY (Aug 29, 2006)

TBH your asking questions that I should be asking lol, but I'm not into PC's to that depth so I don't bother asking them, BUT, what I have learnt and believe to be very true of PC's is to buy the very best you can afford, that way it will last you much longer than a budget system will and that in turn saves you money by not needing to upgrade so quickly next time due to newer software requiring minimum standards that surpass your budget build, by paying the extra now it means it will be longer before the stuff you get in the future requiring something you don't have, if that makes sense lol.

As to SLi it's new tech (more so with ram), but from what I can see it's basically utilising your system more and helping lesser experienced people max their stability while gaining performance at the same time, but I can certainly tell you I notice the benefit of this ram compared to the 1gig I used to run in my old system, even that used to get bottlenecks that choked the system up when doing several things at once, but so far I haven't noticed that with this ram, it's really personal choice, yes if you want to cut cost to the bone you don't need such ram, and you can make do with lesser specs, but if you think of PC's like you would cars, a little 1100 will do you very nicely and cheaply getting you around NP's, BUT, it will not last you as long or perform as well as a classy executive end car will, some people are happy with economy versions, others want performance, it's what best suits your needs which no one else can clearly answer, they can only advise given the info supplied, hope this helps you a bit at least.


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

The reason I said anything faster than a dual channel pair of DDR2 533 RAM is because of latencies. I was reading some benchmarks, and a single stick of 667 MHz RAM with a latency of 5 had almost the exact same bandwidth as a single stick of 533 MHz RAM with a latency of 4. You can get reduced latency RAM, but it will cost almost $100 just to bring down the latency one clock cycle, for example, from 5 to 4.

Here is some math:

The Core 2 Duo has an 8 Byte (64 bit) FSB that operates at 1066 MHz (effective). So...

8 B x 1066 MHz = 8528 MB/s, or about 8.5 GB/s bandwidth.

Now lets compare the bandwidths of two different RAM speeds, a dual channel pair of DDR2 533 RAM, and a pair of DDR2 800 RAM. If you have a dual channel 16 Byte (128 bit) DDR2 533 MHz (effective) setup...

16 B x 533 MHz = 8528 MB/s, or about 8.5 GB/s bandwidth.

You can see it is equal to the FSB, so your FSBRAM ratio is 1:1. This is good, since the one component that has to be fast enough to keep up with the RAM, CPU, and rest of the system is the FSB. But if you have a dual channel 16 Byte (128 bit) pair of DDR2 800 MHz (effective) RAM...

16 B x 800 MHz = 12800 MB/s, or 12.8 GB/s bandwidth.

With the DDR2 800 RAM, the bandwidth of the RAM exceeds the bandwidth of the FSB, and the extra speed of the RAM is wasted. Since the majority of the FSB in Intel CPUs is used for memory access, having RAM faster than the FSB is pointless.

Now even when taking latency into effect, it still wouldn't be worth it, because, especially when gaming, the FSB is still used for other things, like communication with the GPU. This will mostly compensate for the fact that the RAM will be slower due to the latency. Thus, a dual channel pair of DDR2 533 RAM with a CAS latency of 3 would be a perfect match for a Core 2 Duo.

Onto overclocking. Basically, if you have RAM slower than the memory bus, then you will encounter stability issues when trying to overclock by increasing the FSB. The E6300, E6400, E6600, and E6700 have locked multipliers, so you will have to increase the FSB to overclock, however, I believe that the X6800 had an unlocked multiplier, so you could simply increase that and increase the CPU speed without affecting the other components..


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## Kalim (Nov 24, 2006)

As buying RAM right now to use effectively, I would suggest DDR2-667. If you want to overclock for the future then DDR2-800. If you want to keep it for future motherboards and ability to utilize the max bandwidth then, you can get the DDR2-800. If your looking for simple performance then DDR2-667 should fulfill it unless you want to OC the FSB higher -- which is always risky.


I have some 2x1GB Corsair RAM on a system running DDR-400 latencies 2-2-3-5 and a system running DDR2-533 with 1GBx2 OCZ RAM latencies 3-4-4-5 and as tested and observed many times, the PC3200 is much quicker in response and execution with better performance.

Lower CAS values are faster and give better performance, most notable in games and where multimedia or computational work is concerned. There is an observed difference in this, very visible.


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## hemants (Nov 20, 2005)

TheMatt said:


> The reason I said anything faster than a dual channel pair of DDR2 533 RAM is because of latencies. I was reading some benchmarks, and a single stick of 667 MHz RAM with a latency of 5 had almost the exact same bandwidth as a single stick of 533 MHz RAM with a latency of 4. You can get reduced latency RAM, but it will cost almost $100 just to bring down the latency one clock cycle, for example, from 5 to 4.
> 
> Here is some math:
> 
> ...


So it actually doesnt make sense to go for RAM higher than 533Mhz unless yur overclocking??

I came across Corsair 2GB PC2-5400 C4 (675Mhz) ; by default it runs at 5-5-5-15 latency ; it says in the description : "It operates at 1.9V and has been verified to operate at low latencies of 4-4-4-12."

How do i get tht latency settings to 4-4-4-12?

Or is it tht yu wudnt recommend me goin for tht RAM speed at all??


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

I personally FWTW: would buy the DDR2 667 CAS4 just so you would have the chance to overclock the FSB, which the core-2's are suppose to be very good at ?


if you know for sure you are not going to overclock then stick with the DDR2 533 and dont waste your money


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

hemants said:


> So it actually doesnt make sense to go for RAM higher than 533Mhz unless yur overclocking??
> 
> I came across Corsair 2GB PC2-5400 C4 (675Mhz) ; by default it runs at 5-5-5-15 latency ; it says in the description : "It operates at 1.9V and has been verified to operate at low latencies of 4-4-4-12."
> 
> ...


You can manually edit the RAM timmings in the BIOS. Look in the Advanced Chipset Setup menu. Just remember to run Memtest86 overnight when you change the RAM timmings or the FSB, even if the manufacturer rated it for the settings you used. It is always good to make sure.


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## floydfan (Oct 18, 2006)

if youre overclocking, its better to get ddr2 800 ram, unless youre getting e6700 and up, because you really want ram that can do more than 333 for chips with low multis. with e6600, it wont be too hard to reach 3.3 without much tweaking, which would require a ram speed of around 366. the ddr2 667 might hit that, but its better safe than sorry. also, if you feel adventurous later on, you'll have some headroom. with ddr2 800 at stock, you can hit 3.6 on the e6600.


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## hemants (Nov 20, 2005)

so..


if its anything more than 533Mhz the system canot actually make use of the extra bandwidth at all??

abt overclocking....if i go for the 800Mhz...are there any guides which i can follow for safe overclockin.....is it really worth it???


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

Effectively, no. 533 MHz might be a little two slow with latencies, but you won't notice a difference with faster 667 MHz. RAM. If you happen to ever get a newer Intel processor with a 1333 MHz FSB, then be sure to get DDR2 667 RAM, to preserve the 1:1 ratio.

With overclocking, if you have a Core 2 Duo, you really won't need to overclock, they are fast enough already.


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## hemants (Nov 20, 2005)

ok cool..thnks alot


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

You're welcome.


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