dubstyles Posted November 6, 2008 Share Posted November 6, 2008 Hi all. I am going to purchase some new RAM for Fallout 3 since my old RAM burned out a month ago, one week after the 1 year warranty, right when the manufacturers wanted it to! Anyway, have a question about RAM, i know that low timings are best (4-4-4-12 > 5-5-5-15 for example). I am not sure what would be best for my motherboard and video card. Here is what hardware i am packing: 2.67 gigahertz Intel Core2 DuoEVGA Nvidia NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS Board: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. P35-DS3LBus Clock: 333 megahertz (interestingly enough, i have the CPU overclocked to 3.33 in BIOS but Windows still reads it at 2.67...) I'm thinking of buying this b/c it is so darn cheap: Newegg Any ideas on what would be best for my computer? I'm mainly concerned with my FSB speed of 333 and i don't know how to choose the best ram for that speed, if bottlenecks will occur etc... Unfortunately i have a 32 bit OS so 2 gigs is the most it will read, and i want bang for my buck! I'm tempted to get 4 gigs of the above and see how much XP-32 bit will let me use, i hear it maxes out at 3.6gb... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 6, 2008 Share Posted November 6, 2008 Hi all. I am going to purchase some new RAM for Fallout 3 since my old RAM burned out a month ago, one week after the 1 year warranty, right when the manufacturers wanted it to! Anyway, have a question about RAM, i know that low timings are best (4-4-4-12 > 5-5-5-15 for example). I am not sure what would be best for my motherboard and video card. Here is what hardware i am packing: 2.67 gigahertz Intel Core2 DuoEVGA Nvidia NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS Board: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. P35-DS3LBus Clock: 333 megahertz (interestingly enough, i have the CPU overclocked to 3.33 in BIOS but Windows still reads it at 2.67...) I'm thinking of buying this b/c it is so darn cheap: Newegg Any ideas on what would be best for my computer? I'm mainly concerned with my FSB speed of 333 and i don't know how to choose the best ram for that speed, if bottlenecks will occur etc... Unfortunately i have a 32 bit OS so 2 gigs is the most it will read, and i want bang for my buck! I'm tempted to get 4 gigs of the above and see how much XP-32 bit will let me use, i hear it maxes out at 3.6gb... I have a close cousin to that board, the P35-DS3R. I started out with this build with Crucial Ballistix PC8500 RAM, which proved to be very problematic--blue sceens in Windows and random core dumps in Linux. Using Memtest86 indicated an issue with the RAM that required RMA'ing; the problems were not completely solved after getting the new sticks, either. Note that I made sure to up the DDR voltage to the levels recommended by crucial--the board was defaulting the voltage to 1.8. Anyway, thanks to plenty of exploring, I found an awesome Gigabyte forum which pointed me toward Mushkin RAM--I'm 'rondeth' on that site too. You may wish to visit that board to decide how to continue; the general consensus is that the GB+Crucial combo can be problematic. Note I say 'can be'--I'm sure it's not a 100% rule. http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/ Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nosisab Posted November 6, 2008 Share Posted November 6, 2008 Hi all. I am going to purchase some new RAM for Fallout 3 since my old RAM burned out a month ago, one week after the 1 year warranty, right when the manufacturers wanted it to! Anyway, have a question about RAM, i know that low timings are best (4-4-4-12 > 5-5-5-15 for example). I am not sure what would be best for my motherboard and video card. Here is what hardware i am packing: 2.67 gigahertz Intel Core2 DuoEVGA Nvidia NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS Board: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. P35-DS3LBus Clock: 333 megahertz (interestingly enough, i have the CPU overclocked to 3.33 in BIOS but Windows still reads it at 2.67...) I'm thinking of buying this b/c it is so darn cheap: Newegg Any ideas on what would be best for my computer? I'm mainly concerned with my FSB speed of 333 and i don't know how to choose the best ram for that speed, if bottlenecks will occur etc... Unfortunately i have a 32 bit OS so 2 gigs is the most it will read, and i want bang for my buck! I'm tempted to get 4 gigs of the above and see how much XP-32 bit will let me use, i hear it maxes out at 3.6gb...Those numbers means the System clock cycles need to pass before the RAM's each stage get stable, so minor numbers are better. Those numbers are highly significant and often they are more meaningful than the clock itself. If you have a word in the choice go for the higher efficiency for clock (DDR2 better DDR ... DDR3 better DDR2) and after for the shorter clock numbers timing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dubstyles Posted November 6, 2008 Author Share Posted November 6, 2008 HA I had Crucial Ballistix ram as well! I tried looking up the product code on new egg where i bought it and it wasn't for sale anymore, but looking at similar Crucial Balistix ram it seems they no longer have a warranty! Like i said they died just over a year from purchase like their was a built in kill switch or something... I really should register on that other forum for general computer knowledge, but im looking for a quick answer, trying to order tonight! So would you recommend DDR2 800 with 4-4-4-12 timings or DDR2 1066 with 5-5-5-15 timings? It seems lower clock speeds are better but higher ?other_number? is better, i'm not sure which is better but the 1066 is $10 more, still pretty cheap though... P.S. never buying Crucial again, i think i'll try Corsair this time. Edit: they recommend not to buy Corsair at the tweak forum you linked, maybe try G.Skill? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 Regarding 800 vs 1066, this would probably depend on whether you're trying for an overclock on the RAM I think...the 1066 should have more 'headroom' to play with the timings, not to mention have the 800-1066 range to play with when fiddling around with FSB speeds. There's a lot of good info on that board, but as usual I'm sure you could find people who swear by Ballistix+Gigabyte mobos. All I know is my 2nd set of ballistix just did NOT like this MB--I went to that forum, picked up some Mushkin 1066 ram (2x2GB), and I've had no problems since...this build is rock-solid. So, that's my circumstantial evidence that the board doles out good advice :biggrin: If I remember correctly, the main guy over there (lsdmeasap) was recommending GSkill as 'liking' the GB mobos, so I'd say take a shot (as long as the return policy's good). As far as the timings go, I think AnandTech or Tom's has a bloody huge story on RAM OC'ing/timings/etc and their effects on gaming--IIRC, the verdict was "not much", at least nothing significant. Stability is the most important attribute here IMO. Make sure to check the recommended voltage on those sticks and set the BIOS voltage bump accordingly...but **** you sound like you know what you're doing! Good luck, man! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dubstyles Posted November 7, 2008 Author Share Posted November 7, 2008 i ended up getting this, i probably won't turn in the rebate b/c i think that voids the warranty though... Thanks for suggesting Mushkin, a company I've never heard of, i hope it works as good for me as it did for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 i ended up getting this, i probably won't turn in the rebate b/c i think that voids the warranty though... Thanks for suggesting Mushkin, a company I've never heard of, i hope it works as good for me as it did for you. No problem, and I REALLY hope they work for you as well as they did me--I didn't get the same modules, but they should be comparable. I bought these. , and they've been trouble-free. I don't think the rebate voids the warranty, it voids your chance to return 'em to newegg (I think). Anyway, good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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