I'm building a water-cooled rig around the Q6600, on an Asus Maximus Forumla SE, and I'd like some advice on some overclockable RAM. I'll be taking the FSB beyond 400, possibly even 500, so I'm looking at DDr2-800 modules that may stretch to DDR2-1000. Any recommendations?
why not just buy some 8500 ram that runs at 1066. I have the Mushkin 8500 running at 1100 with 5-4-5-12 timings. (or is it 5-5-4-12? I can never remember where the 4 is set at)
Mainly because 1066MHz RAM is so much more expensive than the 800MHz stuff. I'm not sure how hard RAM can be pushed, in general. What could I expect to get out of cheaper 800MHz RAM?
I've had my 2x2GB kit of OCZ 6400 Platinum (the 5-4-4-15 one) to 495MHz stable, if you were after 4GB that is. I wouldnt worry about getting any higher than 450MHz though, you wont reap massive rewards by going nuts on the fsb and 450MHz will be enough headroom to get to 4GHz (which would need serious cooling and a lucky chip anyway)
Ah, but could I expect results like that out of any 6400 RAM? 4GB would be great, and there are a few kits to choose from, but it's still a sizable investment. Would I be better off with this Corsair stuff: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=585085 Or should I shop around and maybe try and bag some OCZ/G.Skill/Geil/Mushkin/etc? Or, looking at this a different way, assume my goal was 4GHz and 1:1 on the cpu:ram. Would I be better off going 400x10 (could I even manage a multiplier that high?) and pushing my water-cooler CPU rather than the ram, or taking some of the pressure of by seeing how fast the RAM'll go?
It does pay to shop around: http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.aspx?sku=339129 4GB of OCZ Plat. for 160 squids. Any reasons not to?
a Q6600 gives you a max multi of 9x, so for 4GHz you would need 445MHz, which the OCZ 6400 platinum is easily capable of. The lowest max overclock ive seen on the ram from all of my pre-purchase reading up was around 470, so you're pretty safe. You wouldn't necessarily get the same clocks from a different 2x2GB kit though. 4GHz is a pretty ambitious target, what are you using for cooling? Even with phase, 4GHz is by no means a given. On water you can bet on about 3.6, but any more than that is down to just how good your gear is and the luck of the draw with the chip. I've got a pretty decent Q6600 (G0) and can quad-prime at 440x9, but any more and core3 fails and the little git won't even get into windows at 4GHz. Temps are rock bottom but more vCore stops helping after 1.5v, bah (4x4GHz would have been so perfect :/ ) If there are any reasons not to go for that ram, I certainly can't think of them
Ah, cheers for the advice, Tad! Much appreciated. RAM has always confused me somewhat. I'll certainly give the big 4GHz a shot, but if it's down to the chip then perhaps I'll wait until Penryn's out before trying to run that stable.
