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Overclocking Part4 -- RAM selectionOct 02 '00 Write an essay on this topic.Next in my admittedly long-winded series is RAM selection. What kind of RAM to get? Touchy subject for some. For others, RAM is RAM, right? If you plan on overclocking, I can't stress this enough - YOU NEED HIGH QUALITY COMPONENTS!! I can't tell you how many times I've tried to help friends out with overclocking thier systems and come to find out that one problem was that they have no-name 32Mb PC66 DIMMS stuffed in their slots. Ick. One thing I can say wither certainty is that you should buy PC133 at the minimum. not only for overclocked systems but for the sake of performance in general. There really isn't much of a price differential between quality PC100 and PC133 to not get PC133. As for PC66--donate them to mom's eMachine where they can do some good... While I can't tell you anymore by looking at the chip codes if a DIMM is top-quality or not, I can definitely say that you get what you pay for. Price for a stick of good 128Mb PC133 SDRAM is about $150. Computer swapmeets, online ads and weekly rag ads that advertise 128Mb of PC133 for $80 just seems too good to be true--but it also might not be. Sometimes companies give you a break for buying other components or run promos. You'd better either know the vendor very well or know the chip markings by sight (view them directly or have someone read the markings over the phone) to keep from getting something other than what you want. Same goes for CPUs from what I've heard, but I've had less of a problem with this than RAM. For the record, I've got a stick of Micron 64Mb PC100 that clocks just as well as my two shiny new Mushkin 128Mb PC133 sticks so far (does that mean I'm not going fast enough? DOH!) Thats not to say that you will have the same luck--far from it. But just like a CPU that's rated to do 300 will easily do 550, it's feasable to expect that quality PC100 will do 133 and quality 133 will do 200. Anandtech has posted a review of most popular PC133 brands at his site and also publishes the chip markings. Lots of good info on RAM there, new technologies also. My current favs are both from Mushkin--Mosel rev2 PC133 and the new PC150 have probably done more in my overclocking efforts than anything else save cooling. I hear that the new BGA typ of ram works equally as well, but I have no firsthand experience with it. One of the reasons I went with the Asus P3V4X in a recent system was it's support for Virtual Channel Memory. Now, I won't go into the details of VCM architecture, I will say that the good news is, at slightly $40 more for a 128Mb stick it is signifigantly faster than SDRAM. The bad news is, it will *not* clock any higher than 155Mhz. Still, it does perform about the same at 155 than SDRAM does at 160. You'd think that that was great unless you needed the higher FSB to get to your desired overclock. I have yet to actually buy and VCRAM, but hopefully I'll be able to buy some soon. If you are looking for some, as far as I know, NEC is the sole manufacturer and Kingston is the sole vendor. About the other two new memory architectures; RAMBUS-forget it. Performance really isn't that much faster than PC133 SDRAM and it's hediously expensive, although it is coming down in price. DDR--show me the money!!! I can't wait to see what DDR is going to do, but right now, it's still a ways off. Benchmarks from early production samples are promising, but still nothing to get real excited about. Keep in mind when you read these reviews that the PCrating of both DDRRAM and RDRAM are totally difference from SDRAM. Bottom line is, don't skimp on your RAM selection. You'll be kicking yourself later if you do. Spend the extra money on Mushkin, Kingston or Micron (or several others--see the roundup above). If you find you just can't afford 256Mb of the good stuff(as much as you'd like to have it), bite the bullet and take 128Mb--you'll be better off if it's high quality stuff, trust me. More isn't always better when it comes to RAM. Say it with me...QUALITY!!!  |
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