Recommend DDR2 2 x 2GB kit

[bofors]

I am in the market for a 2 x 2GB kit of DDR2 RAM for BadAxe1/2 (975X Northbridge). I have been running about DDR2-800 at (3-3-3-4) on Crucial Ballistix (which seem to be dying). I have no need for SLI RAM.

I have been out of the overclocking scene for awhile, so I could use some advice on what to get. Basically, I am shopping for quality/good value overclocking RAM, but nothing extreme.

What is the best DDR2 overclocking deal on the market right now? Is 2 x 2GB the way to go for 4GB or is 4 X 1GB worth considering?

I am looking at the NewEgg 2 x 2GB kit of DDR2 list sorted by "best rating": http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...d&Order=RATING

These kits look like they are worth considering:

~$63 G.Skill DDR2-1000 (CAS 5) F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231145

~$70 OCZ Reaper HPC Edition DDR2-800 (CAS 4) OCZ2RPR800C44GK
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227267

~$59 Corsair XMS2 DHX DDR2-800 (CAS 4) TWIN2X4096-6400C4DHX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145194

NOTE: That Corsair claims these are PSC ICs here: http://www.houseofhelp.com/v3/showthread.php?t=57334

~$75 OCZ Platinum DDR2-1066 (CAS 5) OCZ2P10664GK
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227298

~$105 Mushkin DDR2-1066 (CAS 5) 996599
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820146785

~$62 Patriot Extreme Performance DDR2-800 (CAS 4) PDC24G6400LLK
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820220269

~$80 Mushkin DDR2-800 (CAS 4) 996580
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820146726

~$70 A-Data Vitesta DDR2-800 (CAS 4) ADQVD1B16K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820211282

no the budget one, and u want a rev with powerchips/psc
http://www.houseofhelp.com/v3/showthread.php?t=57334

and if u can spend like 100-120 then the mushkin assent 1066 is the best that u can get right now for 2x2

~$130 mushkin XP ASCENT w/ eVCI technology DDR2 1066 (CAS 5) 996619
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820146789

are you looking for a total of 4gb or 2gb?
i'm not sure why you're looking for D9's either unless you're benching. D9's die way too frequently to be in a daily machine. not sure why you think you need to 1000+ mhz with cas4 either.
i'd just suggest picking up this gskill kit:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231166

~$110 G.Skill DDR2-1066 (CAS 5) F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231166


What is the best overclocking deal here?

[zsamz_]

get these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820146785

[bofors]

get these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820146785

~$105 Mushkin DDR2-1066 (CAS 5) 996599

Thanks for the recommendation!

Do you happen to know which ICs these Mushkin sticks use?

[op1e]

The GSkills for sure. Running mine at 1066 no problem. Why pay $40 more?

[zsamz_]

~$105 Mushkin DDR2-1066 (CAS 5) 996599

Thanks for the recommendation!

Do you happen to know which ICs these Mushkin sticks use?

they all use powerchips
i like mushkin cause they dont bin them as tight as gskills
you should be able to do 1100+
my redline do 1142

[18 is # 1]

My 800 Ascent did 1115 MHz.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820146793

[bofors]

Thanks for all the input, guys. I am going to narrow it down to kits by G.Skill and Mushkin.

I am going to rule out Muskin Assents because I am concerned about the width of the heat sinks should I choose to add another pair for a full 8GB later. I am also looking at the Mushin eVCI technology as more of a marketing gimmick than something I want to pay for.

The GSkills for sure. Running mine at 1066 no problem.

I assume you mean these:

~$63 G.Skill DDR2-1000 (CAS 5) F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231145

Why pay $40 more?

My budget is not that tight and I am still looking at all this RAM as being dirt cheap compared to what I spent on my Crucial Ballistix almost two years ago.

Since RAM rated for DDR2-1066 CAS 5 should be binned higher than DDR2-800 CAS 4, I think I have narrowed it down to two choices:

~$110 G.Skill DDR2-1066 (CAS 5) F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820231166

~$105 Mushkin DDR2-1066 (CAS 5) 996599
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820146785

EDIT:

I just ordered the ~$110 G.Skill DDR2-1066 (CAS 5) F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK. I choose it over the comparable Mushkin mainly because the Mushkin price requires a rebate that I do not want deal with, but also because this G.Skill kit won a NewEgg "Customer Choice" award, it is explicitly 975X compatible and I suspect it otherwise essentially the same as the Mushkin (same bin of PowerChips ICs).

Thanks again for all the input.

[ChinStrap]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145194

if you have room, they run the best heatsink of the bunch.

[andressergio]

they all use powerchips
i like mushkin cause they dont bin them as tight as gskills
you should be able to do 1100+
my redline do 1142

Hey zsamz my Mushkin Ascent Pc28500 do as yours 1141 on my old Asus P5K Deluxe with the Q6600 as my sig

Cheers
Sergio

[-n7-]

I am also looking at the Mushin eVCI technology as more of a marketing gimmick than something I want to pay for.

I just ordered the ~$110 G.Skill DDR2-1066 (CAS 5) F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK. I choose it over the comparable Mushkin mainly because the Mushkin price requires a rebate that I do not want deal with, but also because this G.Skill kit won a NewEgg "Customer Choice" award, it is explicitly 975X compatible and I suspect it otherwise essentially the same as the Mushkin (same bin of PowerChips ICs).

Thanks again for all the input.

975X?

I suspect you're going to find running 2x2 GB DDR2-1066 to be a bit of an issue; i hope i am wrong though.

Do you have adjustable tRFC?

If not, better hope G.Skill has tRFC programmed loosely in SPD (for auto settings), or you won't likely even hit DDR2-1000...

Marketing gimmick would be G.Skill's Pi heatspeaders, which are uselessly large.
eVCI may not make a huge difference, just like the Dominator heatsinks don't make a huge one, but they are better heatspreaders than the normal Mushkin ones & pretty much all the other ones manufacturers use.

And while they do both use Powerchips, G.Skill seems to bin a lot more tightly, which means less of an overclock than you usually get with the Mushkin.

[18 is # 1]

eVCI may not make a huge difference, just like the Dominator heatsinks don't make a huge one, but they are better heatspreaders than the normal Mushkin ones & pretty much all the other ones manufacturers use. Powerchips .

I'm not sure they make a difference since the Powerchips run so cool and max around 2v. A little different than D9s.
I dropped my 800 Ascents back to 1.9v (I also got the tRFC down to 49).

[MGreg]

eVCI may not make a huge difference,

Heat wise, I found w/o direct active cooling, 2.25v bios (2.35v hardware monitor) on a maximus formula board, they weren't warmer then the air around them to the touch.
When it came to 2.35v(2.45v) (didn't want to fry my ram) I added a 120MM over them and was also not warmer then the air to the touch.
This was after an hour of hci memtest.

But the additional voltage doesn't help with these 2x2GB kits.

[bofors]

975X?

Well, like I posted above, one of the reasons (a very minor one, because I did not think that the chipset would be an issue) that I ordered the G.Skills instead of the Mushkins was the fact that the G.Skills are explicitly stated to be 975X compatible in NewEgg's specifications:


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231166

I suspect you're going to find running 2x2 GB DDR2-1066 to be a bit of an issue; i hope i am wrong though.

I have been running under DDR2-800 (to maintain, perhaps foolishly, a 1:1 divider but at low latency: 3-3-3-4), so I am probably not going to be too disappointed as long these G.Skills reach DDR2-800 at CAS 4 on my BadAxe boards.

Do you have adjustable tRFC?

If not, better hope G.Skill has tRFC programmed loosely in SPD (for auto settings), or you won't likely even hit DDR2-1000...

It does not look like any 975X boards have adjustable tRFC, but I am not 100% sure. However, since NewEgg/G.Skill is claiming 975X compatibility, is it possible the default tRFC is set loose enough for the RAM to hit the DDR2-1066 it is rated for? I mean, otherwise they really should not be stating that this RAM is 975X compatible (of course, I know that NewEgg's RAM specs can be a little unreliable).

And while they do both use Powerchips, G.Skill seems to bin a lot more tightly, which means less of an overclock than you usually get with the Mushkin.

I was wondering exactly what Zsamz_ meant by "i like mushkin cause they dont bin them as tight as gskills". Am I now to understand that the Mushkins are probably binned higher (i.e. use higher quality ICs) than these G.Skills (hence the higher price of the Muskins before rebate)? Had I comprehended this, I probably would have gone with the Mushkins instead.

NewEgg has not shipped my order yet, so I could try to cancel it and get the Mushkins instead. On the other hand, since you are raising this 975X/tRFC issue, it may be that these G.Skills (supposedly rated for DDR2-1066 on 975X) are really what I want for my BadAxe boards.

At this point, I am less concerned about maximum performance and more interested in avoiding hassles like RMA's and rebates. So, I guess I will wait and see how well these G.Skills work for me.

Anyways, I sincerely appreciate for your input. This is why I come to XtremeSystems, the experts in high performance like yourself are here. I will be sure to post my results.

[Eldonko]

I would have spent the $100 on a non-975x board personally.

[-n7-]

Well, if you only want DDR2-800 CAS 4, then you'll be fine i'm sure.

Not sure why you'd buy a DDR2-1066 kit when all you want is DDR2-800 though...

[trt740]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227289

[oli_ramsay]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...k=g.skill%20pi

These look sweet, CAS4 @ 1.8v. Should be a lot of OC headroom there I reckon, maybe even DDR2-800 @ CAS3!

[18 is # 1]

Should be a lot of OC headroom there I reckon, maybe even DDR2-800 @ CAS3!

Probably not or they would be on 1066 sticks. GSkill doesn't like to give anything away.

[bofors]

I would have spent the $100 on a non-975x board personally.

At this point, I have decided that my next building cycle is going to be Bloomfield/x58/DDR3 (or possibly even the dual-socketed Gainestown platform if it looks like I actually have a need for machines with 16 logical cores). But I do not think I am going to be an early Nehalem adopter and considering thay are still not publicly available, it may be over a year before I make the move.

As I am still only using dual-core Xeon 3060's (Conroe E6600), I may very well upgrade to quad-core Kentsfields (Q6600 or equiv.) if I really need some more computational power in the meantime. The only reason I am in the RAM market at the moment is that I had yet another Crucial Ballistix module die and I want something to replace it more or else immediately (I will RMA it later). The last time I bought 4GB of quality performance RAM (Crucial Ballistix), I paid about $500. So at about $100, it seems like they are giving it away to me.

Not sure why you'd buy a DDR2-1066 kit when all you want is DDR2-800 though...

I actually had narrowed my choices to CAS 4 DDR2-800 kits from G.Skill and Mushkin, but then I thought the CAS 5 DDR2-1066 is probably binned higher, so I might as well get it instead for only ~$25 more.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227289

~$98 OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2-1066 CAS 5 OCZ2RPR10664GK

This may be good RAM, but I am a little skeptical about OCZ in general and they have had some major RAM blunders in the past. I also have noticed that people on NewEgg are complaining about not getting their rebates from OCZ. I decided to follow the advice of most people here at XtremeSystems and go with G.Skill or Mushkin instead.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...k=g.skill%20pi

These look sweet, CAS4 @ 1.8v. Should be a lot of OC headroom there I reckon, maybe even DDR2-800 @ CAS3!

~$70 G.SKILL PI Black DDR-800 CAS 4 (1.8 - 1.9 volts) F2-6400CL4D-4GBPI-B

So, this is kit new to the market, there are no reviews at NewEgg yet and it apparently sports the "uselessly large" PI heatspeaders. You make a good point though, I was not considering voltage when shopping and did not even know this kit existed (I was looking at highly rated RAM at New Egg and this RAM is unrated as of yet). It could have been the way to go or for all I know it comes from a lower bin than the G.Skill that I ordered (I tend to assume correlation between price and bin). Unfortunately, I am not going to be a guinea pig for this.

Thanks for everyone's input.

[18 is # 1]

I was not considering voltage when shopping .

All of these high-end kits use the Powerchips mentioned above. The only difference between them is binning and heat spreaders.

[Eeky NoX]

What's sure, the 2x2go OCZ ReaperX HPC PC8000 aren't very happy withe high vDimm : no improuvement behind 2,15v

Not impressive in Cas4 (@400 4/4/4/12/15 1T 680i inside), but the Cas5 @450 (5/4/4/8/15 2T) I v'got to push up the fréquency now,

but doesn't seem to go much higher than the specifications : 500 with low latency is what I've seen at this time...

[OCX600RR]

What do you guys think of the 4GB set of Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 CAS4 @2.0v?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148212

[David_L6]

What do you guys think of the 4GB set of Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 CAS4 @2.0v?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148212

I haven't had very good luck with Ballistix in my crunchers. Didn't last very long crunching World Community Grid 24/7.

I'm running G.Skill only now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231145

[trt740]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227289

I have this ram and it does past 1100+ not problem at 2.1v
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227289

[bofors]

Below are my results with the G.Skill RAM that I got from NewEgg:

~$110 G.Skill DDR2-1066 (CAS 5) F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231166

I am running this RAM at 2.2 Volts, the maximum for BadAxe 1.

(1) This RAM will do DDR2-677 at 3-3-2-10 but I could not get it to POST at DDR2-800 with CAS latency (CL) set to 3. I did not bother to find the maximum CL 3 speed (it's somewhere between DDR2-667 and DDR2-800).

(2) This will do DDR2-900 at 4-4-3-10 but I have been unable to test higher frequencies do the limitations of the BadAxe 1 board and the apparent lack of overclocking headroom in my CPU. Specifically, the BadAxe 1 board I am using right now will not POST on the 1066 strap with the memory frequency set to DDR2-800 even at 5-5-5-15, even though I get well past that speed with tighter latencies by setting the frequency to DDR2-667 and then overclocking. This means that I am stuck hitting the maximum overclock of my CPU (~3.24 GHz) instead of maximizing the RAM speed. I had problems trying to get around this by use the 800 strap instead.

Bottom Line: Was this the right RAM kit for me to get? I don't know for sure, but I think it was pretty close to the best choice. I was hoping for CAS 3 at DDR2-800, but now that I know what this RAM can do, I would certainly want RAM that can do at least DDR2-900 at CAS 4. Perhaps a better choice for 975x chipsets would have been the G.SKILL PI Black DDR-800 CAS 4 which has now been reported at NewEgg to do DDR2-933 at 4-4-4-12:

~$70 G.SKILL PI Black DDR-800 CAS 4 (1.8 - 1.9 volts) F2-6400CL4D-4GBPI-B
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...k=g.skill%20pi

I am satisfied with my purchase however, thanks again to everybody who makes XtremeSystems what it is.