Corsair Dominator 2x2GB PC8500 DDR2

[dinos22]

[Yellowbeard]

ACK! I thought I was on the wrong site again....the one with all the popups

[J@mmer]

LOL yeh we've heard you're that way inclined YB.

Yuleh, all good bro. I know your just being gay.

I have since sold the kit to a mate and they are working perfectly on his evga 750 FTW board. I think troubles had something to do with the broken ram dividers on x38 boards. I'm now using a Rampage Formula which seems to be a little better.

[luxolex]

I am ready to purchase this Dominator kit. I was considering the G-Skills 8500's but I read that there might be issues with using them with a DFI X48 board.

Can anyone tell me if there will be any problems running 2 of these kits together for a total of 8gigs in a DFI X48 board with a Q9450? Thanks!

[gungstar]

tested 2 kits of this Corsair
first reached 1160, second 1170
both 5-5-5-15@2.1V on P5K Premium

[Bluebeard]

What do you reach with 8GB would be the next question

[yankee]

How do these scale with voltage? Has anyone tried >2.3? Can they do 500 @ Cas 4?

[DeanZ]

I just picked myself up some of this and its amazing...its 1000x better then my ballistix i use to have, I'm almost able to keep up with the X38s with my 120$ P5K vanilla...has anyone had experence running this over 2.2v, I think I need more then 2.2 to hit 1170mhz which is the next step for me

But serously $120 in Canada with the dominator fan...greatest investment for my computer yet

[Bluebeard]

They do not scale much with >2,1V

[saaya]

they barely scale at all with vdimm
thats the weird thing about powerchip, they really dont seem to care about vdimm at all

[Yellowbeard]

The neat thing is that some are hitting 1200+ at 2.1v which was never the norm for D9s.

[DeanZ]

how do I get higher if voltage doesn't matter...I just actually realized that after I booted with 2.00v normal settings, I guess I gotta kill my timings

[Yellowbeard]

how do I get higher if voltage doesn't matter...I just actually realized that after I booted with 2.00v normal settings, I guess I gotta kill my timings

You can experiment with it and see if some extra V will help. Just remember that the tested and warrantied voltage is 2.1v.

[RealTelstar]

The neat thing is that some are hitting 1200+ at 2.1v which was never the norm for D9s.

And that's my goal

[zlojack]

Mine are doing fine at 2.1v at 1133MHz

That's with 8GB.

I'm going to try and push them further and see how high they can go, but 1133 for 8 GB is pretty good.

[Yellowbeard]

Mine are doing fine at 2.1v at 1133MHz

That's with 8GB.

I'm going to try and push them further and see how high they can go, but 1133 for 8 GB is pretty good.

Yes it is, nice OC

[miguelca]

gungstar,

May I kindly ask which sub-timings you've used while testing those kits?
And voltages (especially NB and FSB Termination)?
For 4GB kits (2x 2GB) I usally set up 1.40v NB, do you think it's enough?

I own a P5K Premium/WiFi-AP and are expecting one kit to arrive tomorrow.

Thanks a lot for your help!

tested 2 kits of this Corsair
first reached 1160, second 1170
both 5-5-5-15@2.1V on P5K Premium

[miguelca]

I received my 4GB PC8500 kit today (with cooler included, but not being used) and unfortunately I've not been able to successfully overclock it past 1110-1120MHz.
Several FSB / Performance Level combinations were tested but memTest86+ v2.01 reports errors after 3-4 (or less) passes on test 5.
Since PSC IC's don't care about more voltage I'm working at the rated 2.1v.
With my QX9650 running at 3825MHz (8.5x 450MHz) and the memory using the 5:6 divider, 1080MHz is completely stable at 5-5-5-15-3-50-6-3-3.
Somehow I expected more from this kit comparing to a G.Skill 1066MHz pair I've owned, but it's definitely not easy... I'd risk to say it's the same sh*t.

Maybe these PSC IC's are already pushed to the max...
I'm using 1.30v FSB Termination, 1.60v CPU PLL, 1.40v NB and Auto SB Voltage. Both spread spectrum's disabled and CPU vCore set at 1.40v (real).

Any suggestions on making this kit run at higher clocks?
Until now I haven't tried to sacrifice timings in order to achive more theoretical bandwidth.

I don't want to sound lazy but if anybody out there managed better results, please post some settings that are reasonable to implement for 24/7 usage (F@H running most of the time ).
Maybe my P35 chipset isn't the best one to squeeze this RAM but gungstar mentioned on a previous post that 1160 and 1170 were possible on two kits with a motherboard exactly the same as mine...

I'd really appreciate any help on this case.

Take care!

P.S. With higher RAM clocks F@H works fine, but Prime95 stops one core after 1 or 2 hours.

[zlojack]

Hi Miguel...

My 8GB were running at 425 FSB 1133 on 2.1v with PL6 5-5-5-15 TRFC 60
I believe tRD 6 is Transaction Booster Enabled 1

They passed 12 hours of Memtest86+

For some reason, out of all the benchmarks I have, I don't have one for those settings

I have since been experimenting with my CPU and have moved things around, so I don't have all the sub-timings perfect.

Right now at 450 FSB tRD 7 (Enabled 0 *I think*)tRFC 60 5-5-5-15 1125MHz

[miguelca]

Thanks for your help, zlojack.

Later I'll try setting my FSB at 425MHz and TRFC at 60.
Maybe I've been insisting too much on setting TRFC at 50 or 55.
When I try pushing Performance Level too high the system doesn't even boot.
The Transaction Booster setting enabled/disabled depends a lot on the divider being used.
I wish Asus would call it Performance Level or tRD instead...

Thanks again for your post.
Take care

[zlojack]

Thanks for your help, zlojack.

Later I'll try setting my FSB at 425MHz and TRFC at 60.
Maybe I've been insisting too much on setting TRFC at 50 or 55.
When I try pushing Performance Level too high the system doesn't even boot.
The Transaction Booster setting enabled/disabled depends a lot on the divider being used.
I wish Asus would call it Performance Level or tRD instead...

Thanks again for your post.
Take care

No problem. Actually, they do call it that on the Rampage Formula bios (which is what I use on my board).

Did you read the Anandtech article about straps and performance level? I highly recommend it.

[miguelca]

Hi zlojack,

It seems the P5K Premium wasn't "blessed" with the correct technical terms on the BIOS setup.
I did read that great article/review from Anandtech, and many others that I use as guidelines for my testing.
Thanks anyway for posting the link!

My tests with the RAM working at 1133MHz with 425MHz FSB failed very quickly.
I've tried relaxing timings (5-5-5-18 for example), fiddling with tRD (PL=7), disabling DRAM Static Read Control, with no positive outcome.
memTest86+ 2.01 fails on test 5 right on the 2nd pass.
Now, with the memory working at 1066MHz and 5-5-3-15-3-55-6-3-3 timings, PL=6, everything works fine.
I'm running Prime95 for more than one hour without any kind of error.
If I try PL=5 my system simply doesn't boot. This seems normal behaviour on 4GB kits with PSC IC's.

Maybe I'm asking too much from this memory on my current setup (probably MB limitation).
I'll try to further optimize timings and subtimings, and will probably stick with this configuration until I change my motherboard (soon).
I just want to have a stable system that is able to run F@H and one or two games just for relaxing purposes.

Thanks a lot for your precious help!

No problem. Actually, they do call it that on the Rampage Formula bios (which is what I use on my board).

Did you read the Anandtech article about straps and performance level? I highly recommend it.

[zlojack]

Well, we tried!

It's good to hear you've found something stable for folding. That's important.

[miguelca]

Yes we did, and I appreciate your help!

Just a quick update:
Running at 1066MHz, 4:5 divider, 5-5-3-14-3-50-6-3-3, tRD=6
DRAM Static Read Control: Enabled

Passed more than 5 hours Prime95 Blend (while I was sleeping).

If I disable DSRC I can set tRD=5, otherwise the PC won't boot.
What do you think is more important?
It seems I loose a bit of memory bandwidth when I disable DSRC...

Thanks again and take care!

Well, we tried!

It's good to hear you've found something stable for folding. That's important.

[TWY]

Curious to know if anyone has tried to see if 1066 is doable below 2.0V?