A couple of Newbie questions! What do we mean when we say RAM should be "balanced" - i.e. what criteria/specs should I be looking to "balance"... ...and what are the consequences if it's not? If someone could point me in the right direction I'd be most grateful. Thanks.
Well i'm guessing by balance you mean dual or triple RAM? If so then for P55 you need dual ie 2 sticks of RAM or 4 sticks of RAM, if it's x58 then 3 sticks of RAM or 6. It would be useful to put your system on your post so we know what to recommend you as different systems would have a different 'balance' of RAM
I'm guessing what he said too. The consequence's would be it just operates slower. Also you could be reffering to different brands. Well say you put in a set of 2000MHz DDR3, and 1333MHz DRR3 (extreme example I know), well the faster set would slow itself right down to come in line with the slower set. As said above, dual channel they ideally need to go in in matched pairs. And tri channel needs to go in as matched triplets. To make sure their in the right slots to be in the correct channel, either look it up in your motherboards manual, or look at the color's on your motherboard. On an Asus P6T, there were 3 orange, and 3 black slots, denoting where to install the triplets. EVGA use black and red. This can vary greatly, I'm just trying to give you a pointer, so you can Google what I'm describing and see what I mean Also don't confuse DDR2 and DDR3 with channel ratings. The 2 and 3 indicate speed. AMD for example still use dual channel, but DDR3 memory. "3" doesn't mean 3 channels, it means fast. Generally looking at the motherboard layout will tell you. If you motherboard has 4 slots, it wants pairs, and if it has 6, it wants triplets. As a very general rule.
My guess is that FSB to DRAM ratio. usually for 775 I believe its best to stay with a 1:1 ratio. But for my 1366 my ratio is 2:10. I have no clue if this is good or bad.
Haha, come on OP, you have 3 different people guessing what you could mean. Put us out of our misery and tell us
I'm not to sure what you mean by balanced but heres an explaination anyway. Don't run odd ram..i.e 800mhz with 1066 ddr2, you should always run in pairs or triplicate for i7 boards. Its not a golden rule, you can mix and match, you could fill all 4 slots with different ratings, but the mobo will always default to the lowest speed, what ever speed that may be. Most board like to be run in pairs or triplicate but that not to say they wont function on a single stick. 1 stick at a time is a good way for trouble shooting if you suspect that you might have a ram problem. Also worth noting there's no point putting ultra fast ram in to a board if it doesn't support it , it'll either refuse to boot or it'll just run at default setting, which would be 800mhz for ddr2 and 1333mhz for ddr3...I hope this has cleared thing up a bit for you. 4 now jonny...lol
Basically if you get the ratios messed up you can cause bottle necks where either the ram of the cpu will try to out run each other and just make a mess of things. Unless you into extreme overclocking and want to extract every last ounce of speed from the ram I find it best to let the board sort out the ratios on it's own........I think I got that 1 right
The ratio is simply a measure of cycles of the RAM to cycles of the CPU. CPUCycles:RAMCycles My memory cycles at 2:6. For every 2 cycles, 6 cycles of the ram have been performed. The higher the ratio, eg 2:8 -> 2:10, well the RAM is now cycling twice more for every CPU cycle, making it faster. Nothing major to it, let the BIOS deal with it. Getting the ratio wrong doesn't mean a whole lot. Your RAM will just go blindingly fast or slow with the wrong ratio. BSOD and get it right
Wow, what a response! Many thanks to you all. I'm looking to start my first build in the next week or so and am still at the design/research stage. I'd be grateful if you guys gave it the "once over" when I've worked it out. I'll post idc. What a great forum!
Well , you could add us all to your friends list so you can contact us at any time. But if you just put up a thread, there will be plenty of knowledgeable dudes on the forum that will more than willing to help you out
