Is CL4 memory too fast for Q6600?

Associate
Joined
12 May 2010
Posts
1,875
Location
West Bromwich
Whats the best memory to buy, to overclock Q6600 to 3.2Ghz on an ASUS P5N32E Sli+ board? At the moment got Valueram at CL6, causing TDR's all the time in games but windows enviroment (just desktop) is completely stable at 1333FSB, 3GHZ.

Read on some other forums that low latency timings makes the system even more unstable. Is this correct?
 
Man of Honour
Joined
12 Jul 2005
Posts
20,488
Location
Aberlour, NE Scotland
Hi and welcome to the forums. :)

It is true and it is'nt true. If overclocking the ram then tighter timings will make it unstable once past it's rated speed but if you have ram rated at 4-4-4-12 @ 800mhz (pc2-6400) then it will be perfectly stable.

For example. You have a kit such as i mentioned above, pc2-6400 (800mhz) rated at 4-4-4-12 and requires 2.0v. This ram may go to 840mhz or a little more without changing anything. However, if you slacken the timings off to say 5-5-5-15 the ram may now go to 900mhz before becoming unstable.

The best ddr2 800mhz kits are usually rated at 4-4-4-12 the best ddr2 1066mhz kits are usually rated at 5-5-5-15. They will be perfectly stable at their rated timings as long as you give them the required voltage and do not take them past their rated speeds.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
12 May 2010
Posts
1,875
Location
West Bromwich
On the Asus website it says the maximum speed my board accepts is 800Mhz, embarrasingly, i knew nothing about cas latency until i started overclocking a Q6600 a couple of weeks back. Been doing a lot of reading, and there seems to be a lot of references to loosening up timings. Sorry, Im a noob when it comes to overclocking but the answers on here and general attitude of the lads is ten times better than any other forums ive posted on. Thanks.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
12 Jul 2005
Posts
20,488
Location
Aberlour, NE Scotland
It completely depends on the kit. PC2-6400 (800mhz) is enough to get your Q6600 to 3.6Ghz while staying at it's rated speed and timings. PC2-8500 (1066mhz) is overkill for a Q6600.

What is your current ram, ie, rated speed/timings/voltage?
 
Soldato
Joined
24 Mar 2008
Posts
4,654
Location
High Wycombe
It completely depends on the kit. PC2-6400 (800mhz) is enough to get your Q6600 to 3.6Ghz while staying at it's rated speed and timings. PC2-8500 (1066mhz) is overkill for a Q6600.

What is your current ram, ie, rated speed/timings/voltage?

Depends, can do 400x9 and get 800mhz on RAM or by going to 450x8 and changing the divider can get 1068mhz on RAM
 
Associate
OP
Joined
12 May 2010
Posts
1,875
Location
West Bromwich
current ram is 2 sticks of 800mhz DDR2 kingston valueram, 4gb timings are 6 6 6 18, and voltage according to hardware monitor when bios is on auto setting is 2.14v. i have overclocked up to 3ghz into stable windows enviroment, but get tdrs in assassins creed 2. tried uping fsb to 1467, but maching wouldnt boot. decreased timings to 7 7 7 21 and it booted but was really slow and cpu at idle was too hot.

im pretty sure tdr's were due to memory timings being too slow because when i decreased core clock on the gpu, tdr's went away. i only live in west brom so sat gonna drive up the M6 and pick up some cl4 memory from overclockers warehouse.
 
Soldato
Joined
11 Sep 2003
Posts
14,716
Location
London
gonna drive up the M6 and pick up some cl4 memory from overclockers warehouse.

Hello Michaeljcox24, welcome to OcUK forums! :)

Please read the forum rules and enjoy your stay . . .

Not sure what your chipset is like for running fast memory but if you can source some DDR2-1066 you may find it gives you more scope/headroom for clocking . . . . it will also be a better investment! :cool:
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
11 Sep 2003
Posts
14,716
Location
London
Is it best to run at 1066 5-5-5-15 or 800 4-4-4-12???

  • DDR2-800 CAS 4 10.0 ns 6,400 MB/s
  • DDR2-1066 CAS5 9.4 ns 8,528 MB/s
Well running 533MHz CL5 gives lower latency and greater bandwidth :) . . . the difference may not move heaven & earth but it's a small performance increase and cobble enough of these tweaks together and you may find you actually notice it outside of benchmarks! :p

Personally I've not really noticed the benefits of having increased memory bandwidth but I've convinced myself I can feel the "Snappiness" that the reduced latency (ns) brings! :D
 
Associate
Joined
21 Nov 2009
Posts
39
I run 4-4-4-12 800mhz on 2 x 2gb geil black dragon 5-5-5-15 sticks with zero problems.
The only thing i had to do to get them stable was hump the voltage up to 2.1v.
Imo your ram is the least of your worrys if your p5ne32 sli is anything like the p5n-e sli i used to run as it was shocking for OC'ing infact to the point of a complete waste of time.
2.8ghz was just about the max i could squeeze from it at nearly 1.5v!! :(
Anyways i fried the bios on it eventually got a nice giga p45 board and now the same chip (Q6600) runs at 3.2ghz at stock volts.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
12 May 2010
Posts
1,875
Location
West Bromwich
Ive got it to boot and runs quite nicely at 3ghz, and that was at stock voltage. wont know if the memory is the actually less of a problem though till i get something better than what is in the machine now. if it still tdr's, ill be replacing the board too as think one of the dimm slots is bent
 
Back
Top Bottom