Overclocking Buyer's Guide - September 2004
by Wesley Fink on September 17, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
DDR Memory
DDR Recommendation: 1GB Kit (2 X 512MB) Crucial Ballistix PC3200Price: $278 shipped
One of the advantages of the new AMD Socket 939 is that it uses regular unbuffered dual-channel memory. This means that almost any memory will fit your new Socket 939 system. Any of the new DDR400 2-2-2 memories will work fine on the Intel 865/865 platform, but we have found that some memory performs much better in Athlon 64 systems than others. The overall best Athlon 64 performance that we have found was with Crucial Ballistix PC3200, and our alternative, OCZ 3700EB/3500EB. These two memories perform just as well on Intel DDR systems, but they stand alone in performing the same on the pickier Athlon 64 Socket 939 boards.
When Corsair 3200XL roared on the scene in May with a return of 2-2-2 timings to DDR400, we had no idea it was just the start of DDR400 2-2-2 from all the major memory makers. As you saw in our roundup of the new 2-2-2 memories, all of the new DDR400 2-2-2 performed well on the Intel test bed and all, but one, used Samsung memory chips. The exception was Crucial Ballistix, which used Micron memory chips and earned our Gold Editors Choice for best performance. Ballistix was also the only 2-2-2 memory tested in the roundup that performed just as well on Athlon 64 as it did on Intel, so it is a great match to the MSI K8N Neo2.
Crucial Ballistix also extends performance all the way to DDR500, with our test memory achieving the fastest timings that we have tested so far at DDR500. This will give you incredible headroom when you select this memory for your system.
Crucial is the well-respected retail division of memory-chip manufacturer Micron, and Crucial has earned regard from customers over years of providing quality memory products and excellent Customer Service. You will also find the Crucial Ballistix PC3200 to be of excellent value among DDR400 2-2-2 memory products.
DDR Alternative: 1GB Kit (2 X 512MB) OCZ PC3700 EB
Price: $325 shipped
One of the advantages of the new AMD Socket 939 is that it uses regular unbuffered dual-channel memory. This means that almost any memory will fit your new Socket 939 system. However, we have found some memory performs much better in Athlon 64 systems than others, and the overall best Athlon 64 performance that we have found was with OCZ 3700EB, or Extended Bandwidth, memory.
The EB takes a little different approach to memory timings, and runs at 2.5-2-2 at DDR400. This is still competitive with the best memory available, but by DDR433 to DDR450, the EB becomes the fastest memory that we have tested at that speed. Performance extends well beyond DDR500 and the performance at DDR500 is the best that we have tested. Many Athlon 64 boards are picky about memory, but every Athlon 64 board that we have tested so far seems quite content with either 3700EB or 3500EB memory.
In the past year, OCZ has raised their Customer Service standards to among the best in the memory industry. We often get emails reporting very positive Customer Service and quick problem resolution when customers have contacted OCZ directly. OCZ combines that excellent Customer Service with a Lifetime Warranty.
Either of these DDR recommendations will work very well on the MSI K8N Neo2, DFI LANParty nF3 250Gb, or Chaintech VNF3-250. However, DDR2 memory is required for the alternative motherboard, Asus P5AD2 Premium.
Listed below is part of our RealTime pricing engine, which lists the lowest prices available on memory from many different reputable vendors:
If you cannot find the lowest prices on the products that we've recommended on this page, it's because we don't list some of them in our RealTime pricing engine. Until we do, we suggest that you do an independent search online at the various vendors' web sites. Just pick and choose where you want to buy your products by looking for a vendor located under the "Vendor" heading.
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whitelight - Friday, September 17, 2004 - link
For ram, look into PQI's 2-2-2-5 (2x512mb) solution. It overclocks really well with relatively tight timings and has samsung's tccd chips. It's also cheaper than other solutions ($250)axel - Friday, September 17, 2004 - link
Hi, very interesting article indeed.The only thing I do not really understand, and rather see as an error is the following:
You say that almost every top overclockers i.e. in the futuremark 3dmarks ORB database are on AMD platforms. Though, except if I'm not looking at the right place, if I'm taking into account the 5 best scores, I see that 4 of them are running Pentium4 platforms, and only one is an AMD (which is actually on the 4th position of the top-5).
AlphaFox - Friday, September 17, 2004 - link
Id like to see how the XP stacks up against the 64 when overclocked.. I have a XP mobile 2600 and am running it at 2.46Ghz and everything I throw at it runs as smooth as silk.. I dont see a need to upgrade unless there was something I couldnt run, or run smooth.eetnoyer - Friday, September 17, 2004 - link
Any chance you've tested the limits of the ballistix RAM on the DFI. If so, how high did it reach?Nickel020 - Friday, September 17, 2004 - link
Nice article, but there is a mistake on page 5 (CPU and Motherboard: VALUE OC Recommendations):The heatsinks listed (XP-90 & 120) are made by Thermalright, not Thermaltake.
Shinei - Friday, September 17, 2004 - link
Nice article, though I'm curious to see how the 3200-M64 performs compared to the Clawhammer and Newcastle desktop cores. I know the Newcastle revisions have an upgraded memory controller, or something like that; does the 3200-M64 have the same upgrades, or is it based on the older Clawhammer revision?And why the choice of OCZ's PowerStream? Antec puts out a 550w that's just as reliable as the 480w you suggested as an alternative... Unless I missed a review that pointed out the OCZ to be more robust than the Antec supply.
qquizz - Friday, September 17, 2004 - link
This is my type of review. I can't have too many of them. I do agree with slashbinslashbash about some guidance on value oriented RAM. The price differences between 2-2-2-5 memory and say 2.5-x-x-x value memory is rather drastic. But if none of it will o/c then so be it.slashbinslashbash - Friday, September 17, 2004 - link
#2: Under the Value OC Alternative system Wesley writes "Buy an ATI 9800 PRO for $200 less and overclock the heck out of it." So it looks like you were right on the money ;) Personally I'm looking at a 9600XT All-In-Wonder as it's about the same price at Newegg; less performance in games (still reasonable framerates in Doom3) but with the ever-so-cool All-In-Wonder functionality added.slashbinslashbash - Friday, September 17, 2004 - link
Great guide. The only thing that I'd ask you to do differently (or rather, to add next time) is to make a "value" recommendation for the RAM. Nowadays I won't use any less than a gig of RAM, but I think it's silly to pay substantially more for RAM than for the CPU. Even just one stick of 512MB in the Value Alternative system costs more than the CPU.I'd like to know some "value" RAM alternatives that might not have such aggressive latency timings but will still keep up with the mobo and CPU, if it's possible. I know you guys can't test every cheapo stick of RAM out there, but... any sort of guidance would be appreciated. All the big brands offer "Value" RAM. Will none of it overclock? Is the performance from the recommended $280 (for 1GB) RAM actually worth the $120 premium it commands over, say, two $80 sticks of Corsair Value Select (on front page of ZipZoomFly)? Would that $120 be better spent on the CPU? It's more than the difference between the Sempron 3100+ and the "Value Recommended" system's A64 3200+.. and it nearly covers the upgrade to both the CPU and motherboard.
Also, two errors: 1) the eVGA 6800GT is listed as $389 under the Value Alternative system but at $383 under the Value Recommended system; 2) the Value Recommended system sums to $1440, not $1460.
Again, great guide, it's probably what I'll be looking at when I decide on my next system.
decptt - Friday, September 17, 2004 - link
For AGP VGA, do you have a value altervative for limited budget not playing doom3?For me, 6800 is too powerful to run multimedia and encoding DivX.
Do you think 9800Pro can be runner up?
Anyone knows about when ATI X series for AGP (X300, X600) will be coming? or ONLY PCI Express :'(