8GB DDR2, what sticks should I go with?

I'm planning to get a G0 stepped q6600 and 8 GB ram for a computer where I'll run some virtual servers and play around with ramdisks. I have not yet decided if I should go with XP 64 bit or Vista.

I haven't seen any real reviews on how good or bad 8GB ram (4x2GB) is when it comes to overclocking and bandwidth. Will I be stuck with 333-350 FSB max if I go with 2 of the cheapest 2x2GB PC5x00 kit's I can find? (2 of [Kingston 2x2048 MB DDR2, PC5400 DDR2-667 - KVR667D2N5K2/4G] )
And are there any problems with lower bandwidth or other problems when using 8GB of ram?

The cheapest 8GB PC6400 I can find are 2 kits of [Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX DHX 4096MB/4GB(2x2048MB) Kit DDR2 XMS2-6400 800MHz] which I suppose would be ok for at least a bit over 400 FSB, but the price of theese is more than 35% higher.

I suppose I am limited to memory I can buy in Swedish net stores, and not everything is available here. If you have any other kits to recommend I'll try to find them in Sweden. Links to reviews where 2 kits of 2x2048MB ram are tested and overclocked would be helpful!

im for xp-64 bit,less bugs and more driver support then vista by a moonshot.your quad core with 8 gigs sounds realll nice man,good plan.just so u know mostly all screamer fsb p965 mobos support quad core and 8 gigs of ram.



as for ram goes...for almost $200 less then the corsair 8 gig "deal" check out the links below,there probaly the same exact ics corsair is using.research em a lil better.

this ram screams
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820220227

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820146692

grab 2 kits = 8 gigs vs corsair already prepackaged 8 gigs for alot more..just buy both kits at the same time almost guranteeing same revesion\ic numbers etc for a great 8 gig match..key

I've got a GA-P35-DQ6 already. I've also got a MSI P6N SLI Platinum (650i chip). I guess I'd prefer to use the P35 one for overclocking duos and have the slower motherboard just run the quad and 8gb ram, but maybe it's just no good for 8GB ram.

There aren't any Patriot eXtreme 2GB sticks at all sold in Sweden :\ The Mushkin ones cost 45% more here than they do at newegg.com. Maybe I should start looking for other sites within EU.

Anyways.. I've seen there are a few 2GB sticks that aren't in those "2x2GB" kits, but just sold as a single 2GB stick. Am I to assume those won't work good in dual channel?

The GEIL Black Dragon are also sold as 8 GB Kits. If you buy 2 or 4 single dimms at once you have a native dual/quadkit at a awesome high percentage

I know a lot of people that are running 4-8 gigs are using Mushkin ram. I've been using Mushkin since day 1 and I can definitely vouch.

I'm having problems finding good net stores in the EU. Suggestions are welcome!

Best price of 8GB PC6400 I've found so far is 2 of theese kits: http://www.alternate.de/html/product...l?artno=ICIEM3
And 8GB of those are just about $24 cheaper than what I can get in Sweden, and if I add shipping to that, it's likely more expensive :\

Desert Igel: Exactly what does "a native dualkit at a awesome high percentage" mean?

I *strongly* recommend ECC/FBDIMMs for memory densities that high. You start to encounter bitflips which cause system instability and lost work.

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Originally Posted by MartinuZ

Desert Igel: Exactly what does "a native dualkit at a awesome high percentage" mean?

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If you buy some RAM Dimms at one time at one shop, there is a high chance that this RAM was produced together, so that they have very similar serial numbers.
You can buy a dualchannel kit, which was put together at the very beginning of the chain to the shop. The chances to buy two matching Dimms in the end are mostly the same.

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Originally Posted by MartinuZ

I'm having problems finding good net stores in the EU. Suggestions are welcome!

Best price of 8GB PC6400 I've found so far is 2 of theese kits: http://www.alternate.de/html/product...l?artno=ICIEM3
And 8GB of those are just about $24 cheaper than what I can get in Sweden, and if I add shipping to that, it's likely more expensive :\

Desert Igel: Exactly what does "a native dualkit at a awesome high percentage" mean?

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Look hpm-computer.de they got allot of rams+ great prices ( for Europe ofc:D) and also ships to Sweden

cheers

Patriot are the HQ die ie smaller IC's. Mushkin uses the B7 or larger "fatty" die and clocks a TON better at better latency. My patriot kit does about 850-875mhz at 5-5-5 at 1.9v. My Mushkin 4gb PC6400 does 1066mhz at 5-5-4 at 2.25 or 2.3v.
Mushkin if you want high speed.
Other's if you just want the ram but don't care about clocks past stock.

Thanks a lot for the answers! Mushkin does sound a lot better, but the price is just insane. Also, my WoW guild has got some sponsorship deal with GEIL, maybe I should look in to that :>

Selectodude, ECC memory is usually even more expensive, right? I can't even find any ECC memory over 1GB and PC5300 or so in sweden.

And I'm starting to think 8GB overclockable ddr2 might be too expensive :\ I'm thinking about an alternative setup with 2x2 GB cheap PC5300 and 2x2GB Mushkin PC6400 or something so I can run 8GB with 333 FSB or 400 and beyond if I remove the PC5300 sticks. Would I get other problems if I mix different memory like that?
Should I go with one stick of each type per channel or does that not matter?

Guys unless you are buying platforms thare a spec'd to work with 8GB you really are playing with stability.

Don't consider running on anything less than workstation class if you do critical work and don't think of clocking them, load is real high with 8GB and while they may look to clock ok they will error VERY easily.

I would listen to Tony here ;)
I have run 8gb on my Asus AM2 Crosshair board. I think if you want 8GB I'd stick with Asus IMO, their bios's and boards seem to be best.
Not to say others won't run it. I'm just saying that's been my best luck with running 4x modules. My Gigabyte threw a hissie with 4x1gb. My Asus P5B Deluxe ate up my 4x1gb D9 micron based dimms.

The 8gb I ran was the MicronHQ or smaller die Micron that I have at 840mhz or so 5-5-5-15 1.925v on an Asus Crosshair AM2 setup. Orthos stable 24+hrs

I haven't really gotten to play with them on any of my Conroes yet b/c to be frank it would limit my oc on the cpus and I don't need that much ram in those rigs anyway.

martin, id recommend you vista 64 over xp64, it already has better driver support and its getting better by the day.

i dont understand why you should be limited when ocing the fsb when using 8gb, you will be limited by mem speed though. 1000 should be possible with tweaking and good mem, maybe even 1100 but anything above that needs damn good memory and a damn good board.
And tony is right, getting 8gb to run can be tricky on some boards, even at stock speeds.

That's what I meant saaya :) If 8 GB ram is barely stable at stock speeds, I won't be able to run the memory fast enough for a high FSB. I'd already be overclocking PC5300 when I go over 333 MHz FSB or 3.0GHz on the q6600. I'd be disappointed if I can't run the q6600 in 3500 or 3600 MHz meaning 400 MHz FSB, meaning DDR800 (PC6400) speed.

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Originally Posted by Tony

Guys unless you are buying platforms thare a spec'd to work with 8GB you really are playing with stability.

Don't consider running on anything less than workstation class if you do critical work and don't think of clocking them, load is real high with 8GB and while they may look to clock ok they will error VERY easily.

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What do you mean by "platform thare a spec'd to work with 8GB"? My Gigabyte P35-DQ6 says up to 8GB, Windows Vista works with 8GB, anything else I should be looking at? (Yeah I decided to buy another P35-DQ6 instead of using my old MSI board)

And what is "workstation class"? I'm not used to having this hardware talk in english!

there's a difference between mobos saying they will run it and actually running it. As Tony stated 8gb is quite a load for the mem controller. On Intel boards that's going to be the chipset ie 965, P35 etc... Some will behave better than others, and certain manufacturers will likely test for this in development with the enthusiest in mind. IE my example of Asus. Now I have no financial ties to Asus other than they plunder my wallet whenever a new board comes out lol.. I'm just saying in my experience certain board makers have a ways to go when loading a board with more dimms and oc'ing. Asus has been good for me, and weather that's hardware, bios or w/e I'm not sure. Probably a mix. I have seen people on here have good results with the Mushkin XP6400 4x2gb dimms getting insane clocks. I think the IC and the binning quality are able to shine on those platforms that will allow it. IC's on other 2gb dimms to this point have been marginal at best. The Micron HQ for example is a 5300 part that sometimes will oc to pc6400 speeds at 5-5-5- timings. Don't think about going lower on the cas or trcd. Ever so slightly possible the trp can go to 4, but not with my examples :(. That's one kit of Mushkin and one kit of Patriot btw. They play nice together in my Crosshair so It's all good ;). Plus AMD is a bit more flexible when it comes to maxing cpu and ram speeds etc... The platform as a whole. The Core2's often will need higher fsb if you have a lower spec part and then you really will want the higher oc'ing mem to compliment that fsb. Then again, if your just planning a core2 setup you could take that into account and get a higher multi cpu like a 4300 or 4400 etc...
Just some food for thought ;)

I must have been very lucky with EVGA 680i A1 board with 8GB (DDR2-800/4-3-3-9/1.95V) Haven't encountered a prob with Vista 64-bit other than the ones related to vid drivers. 12 hours of memtest ran fine..

I dunno about the stability.

I have zero problems running 8 GB stable in various 775 boards. I have 4x 2 GB ECC unreg sticks with Micro D9DNL (? forgot the letters) and although I have difficulties finding a board I really like there seems to be no issue at all with the stick load. And that includes 400 MHz FSB memory 1:1 in a 965 DS3 rev 1.3.

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Originally Posted by JNav89GT

I would listen to Tony here ;)
I have run 8gb on my Asus AM2 Crosshair board. I think if you want 8GB I'd stick with Asus IMO, their bios's and boards seem to be best.
Not to say others won't run it. I'm just saying that's been my best luck with running 4x modules. My Gigabyte threw a hissie with 4x1gb. My Asus P5B Deluxe ate up my 4x1gb D9 micron based dimms.

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My DS3P runs great with 4x1GB D9. That's the cheaper version of the DQ6, there aren't many differences. So I don't think the DQ6 is a bad choice.


Martinuz, you can take a look at www.memoryc.co.uk, lots of memory to choose from.

Thanks for the replies, I'll check out that memory site.

EDIT: www.memoryc.co.uk has pretty much to choose from, but they're all more expensive than what I can get in sweden atm.

Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB(2 x 2GB) PDC24G6400ELK
Anyone know what ICs are on these sticks. Or, have any experience running this memory with 8GB on a p965?

thanks

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Originally Posted by uOpt

I dunno about the stability.

I have zero problems running 8 GB stable in various 775 boards. I have 4x 2 GB ECC unreg sticks with Micro D9DNL (? forgot the letters) and although I have difficulties finding a board I really like there seems to be no issue at all with the stick load. And that includes 400 MHz FSB memory 1:1 in a 965 DS3 rev 1.3.

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should not be a problem because sticks are workstation class spec'd

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Originally Posted by chuckbam

Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB(2 x 2GB) PDC24G6400ELK
Anyone know what ICs are on these sticks. Or, have any experience running this memory with 8GB on a p965?

thanks

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I returned the Patriot memory and purchased 8 GBs of Muskin DDR2 800. I ran prime95 all night Sunday at 840 MHz. And, not one crash since. I going to play with it more when I have time. I only increased the Vs a little. And, I will not increase them any further. I have a 3.36 GHz and that is within spec volts. I am not going for a maximum overclock. I depend on this computer and run it 24/7. It has been at idle at around 32C. When it is all set up, I am going to enable EC1

Check out the brand new G.skill PC8000 4 GB (2x2 GB) kits at new egg----> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231145. They are only $189.99 each which is extremely suprising. I think these may be using the new Elipida 70nm ICs and that may explain the unusually good price to performance ratio. Normally Micron is doing the best for 4 GB kits.

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Originally Posted by chuckbam

I returned the Patriot memory and purchased 8 GBs of Muskin DDR2 800. I ran prime95 all night Sunday at 840 MHz. And, not one crash since. I going to play with it more when I have time. I only increased the Vs a little. And, I will not increase them any further. I have a 3.36 GHz and that is within spec volts. I am not going for a maximum overclock. I depend on this computer and run it 24/7. It has been at idle at around 32C. When it is all set up, I am going to enable EC1

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This is what I came up with. I decreased the tRAS to 15. I could go with a greater overclock with 18 both with the CPU and the memory. I was running at 3.4 GHz no problem. Did not go any further.

I Loop 3DMARK06 and Prime95 v25.4 simultaneously for 2 hours. I am running just Prime95 now. My memory score is not the greatest, But, I have read that it is a limitation of 8x 401 FSB to ? with the P5B. I went at a lower FSB, the memory score went up. But, all the other benchmarks went down in several programs. Overall, I find Vista 64_bit is faster with 8GBs. The HD, CPU went up a good amount. And, the video went up a little.

http://chuckbam.com/0400707/102407/CPUz_3360a.png

http://chuckbam.com/0400707/102407/PCMARK05_b102407.png

PCMARK reports the wrong clock speed. Because the bios reposts wrong with 8x and my CPU. All the other test reports correct.

http://chuckbam.com/0400707/102407/59102407_Blu.PNG

Beautiful.

Have you found the max you can hit with that Mushkin?

Well, I just got my Mushkin sticks as in sig and they are sick!:D

1070Mhz 5-5-5-18 @ 1.9volts...:up:

Definately go with 2 g.skill 4gb kits (PC2 8000). I paid only $189.00 on newegg 2 weeks ago.

Now there at $169.00.:eek: 8gb of fast ddr2 memory for less then $350.00:shock:

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Originally Posted by eToh

Definately go with 2 g.skill 4gb kits (PC2 8000). I paid only $189.00 on newegg 2 weeks ago.

Now there at $169.00.:eek: 8gb of fast ddr2 memory for less then $350.00:shock:

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They are now $154.

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Originally Posted by eToh

Definately go with 2 g.skill 4gb kits (PC2 8000). I paid only $189.00 on newegg 2 weeks ago.

Now there at $169.00.:eek: 8gb of fast ddr2 memory for less then $350.00:shock:

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I have not seen any performance report on this memory. I would like to see one on a 8GB configuration.

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Originally Posted by chuckbam

I have not seen any performance report on this memory. I would like to see one on a 8GB configuration.

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Then you havent checked. I think I read a couple revies here from eva and enjoy.:)

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Originally Posted by eToh

Then you havent checked. I think I read a couple revies here from eva and enjoy.:)

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You think?