Asus Crosshair and OCZ Memory issue

[Crazy Chuckster]

Well last week I bought an Asus Crosshair board, AMD 6000+ and the 2gb set of OCZ PC8500 SLI ram linked here http://shop3.outpost.com/product/5162136.

My problem is that if I enable the SLI option for the memory in the bios it will only run at 250mhz instead of the 200 needed for my processor. Is the SLI feature for the ram going to give me much of a performance jump or should i try to cut the timings down some to see better numbers?

I am considering returning this ram and going with something with tighter timings in the PC2-6400 range. Also is getting ram listed to run at 1T going to show much of a benefit over 2T?

[theelectic]

Sounds normal. The RAM wants to run at 2.3V and 533MHz (DDR2-1066) according to the EPP data. The CPU wants to run at 3000MHz with its stock 200x15 multiplier.

To run the RAM at 533MHz, the CPU multiplier has to be dropped from 15x to 12x. At 15x, the lowest divider (on the DDR2-800 setting) is /8. 533x8 = 4264MHz, which no AM2 CPU can do. On the 12x multiplier, the lowest divider is /6, and 533x6 = 3198MHz, which most CPUs can do. It sounds like the motherboard is trying to match the stock CPU speed, which is 3000MHz, and lowering the RAM as a result (again, this is normal). 3000/6 = 500, and to get to 3000MHz with a 12x multiplier requires a 250MHz HTT speed.

So your RAM is slightly underclocked, but that's OK - you may be able to run 4-4-4-15 instead of the stock 5-5-5-15.

If you want to delve into the BIOS and set things manually, set your HTT speed to 266 with a 12x CPU multiplier, use the DDR2-800 setting, and set your RAM to 2.3V. That way your CPU will be slightly overclocked but your RAM will be running at its stock rated 533MHz (DDR2-1066).