4x512MB ram modules in Dual channel, possible?

[Heinrich]

I have the s939 MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard with 2x512MB PC3200
Kingston
value ram running in Dual channel. CPU is AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (Winchester).
I lost my manual to the motherboard, so I can't check this there.
Is it possible to have 4 RAM modules in the 4 available DIMM slots and run
in Dual channel? If presumed the modules are from the same manufactor and
same size, latency etc.

 

[Ed Light]

What chipset is that?

I'm running 4 x 512 in dual channel on my nforce 3 ultra. It's supposed to
require a slowdown to 333, but I manually set it to 400 and it passes all
tests.


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[Wes Newell]

I have the s939 MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard with 2x512MB PC3200
Kingston
value ram running in Dual channel. CPU is AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (Winchester).
I lost my manual to the motherboard, so I can't check this there.

Then DL the manual.

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/manual/mnu/spt_mnu_detail.php?UID=607&kind=1

 

[Tro]

What chipset is that?

I'm running 4 x 512 in dual channel on my nforce 3 ultra. It's supposed to
require a slowdown to 333, but I manually set it to 400 and it passes all
tests.


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K8N Neo2 Platinum is based on nForce3 250GB/ Ultra

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

I have the s939 MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard with 2x512MB PC3200
Kingston
value ram running in Dual channel. CPU is AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (Winchester).
I lost my manual to the motherboard, so I can't check this there.
Is it possible to have 4 RAM modules in the 4 available DIMM slots and run
in Dual channel? If presumed the modules are from the same manufactor and
same size, latency etc.

As long as you have matching pairs it will work fine. With two pairs
the BIOS will set the RAM clock to 166MHz which is the spec for four
DIMMs on an A64. However you can force the BIOS to run the RAM at
200MHz, which may work especially if your second pair is performance
RAM instead of Value RAM. I have two MSI boards, the Neo2 platinum and
the Neo4 platinum. I have two pairs of DIMMs in each. On the Neo4
Platinum I initially had two pairs of OCZ value RAM and it wouldn't
run stably at 200MHz. I bought a pair of performance RAMs and put them
into the Neo4 board and moved the other two to the Neo2 (which had a
pair of single sided DIMMs in it). Both systems now run fine at 200MHz.

You should be able to download a pdf of the manual from the MSI site.

 

[Heinrich]

K8N Neo2 Platinum is based on nForce3 250GB/ Ultra

Thank you for the answers much appreciated'
Foud out that my modules are doublesided.
That mean, that I can run only at DDR333 speed.

Then I ask, is there a big slowdown of the system as a whole compared to the
"going from 1GB to 2GB"?
as said the lower RAM FSB slowdown is bad instead of getting 1 gig more of
ram?

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

Thank you for the answers much appreciated'
Foud out that my modules are doublesided.
That mean, that I can run only at DDR333 speed.

Then I ask, is there a big slowdown of the system as a whole compared to the
"going from 1GB to 2GB"?
as said the lower RAM FSB slowdown is bad instead of getting 1 gig more of
ram?

The benefits of more RAM far outweigh the performance loss due to the
slower RAM clock (it's not an FSB, that term applies to Intel chips, on
AMD chips you have a RAM interface and and several HyperTransport buses
which together provide the functionality of an FSB). At most you'll see a
5% difference in performance on an individual program, but you'll be able
to handle much bigger applications and much more can be cached in RAM
which has an enormous benefit.

However if you spend a little more on your RAM you may be able to run at
200MHz even with double sided DIMMs. I have 4G in my X2 4400+ MSI K8N Neo4
system which works fine at 200MHz. When I had two pairs of cheap DDR
400 OCZ RAM I could only run at 166MHz, but when I replaced one pair with
better RAM I was able to run at 200MHz with no problems. My systems run
24/7 and they don't crash ever. Also the MSI boards have good
overclocking capabilities. You can improve your chances of running at
200MHz by raising the voltage on the DIMMs a little. The MSI BIOS tells
you what's safe and what's not, just raise the voltage to the top of the
safe range.

 

[Heinrich]

The benefits of more RAM far outweigh the performance loss due to the
slower RAM clock (it's not an FSB, that term applies to Intel chips, on
AMD chips you have a RAM interface and and several HyperTransport buses
which together provide the functionality of an FSB). At most you'll see a
5% difference in performance on an individual program, but you'll be able
to handle much bigger applications and much more can be cached in RAM
which has an enormous benefit.

However if you spend a little more on your RAM you may be able to run at
200MHz even with double sided DIMMs. I have 4G in my X2 4400+ MSI K8N Neo4
system which works fine at 200MHz. When I had two pairs of cheap DDR
400 OCZ RAM I could only run at 166MHz, but when I replaced one pair with
better RAM I was able to run at 200MHz with no problems. My systems run
24/7 and they don't crash ever. Also the MSI boards have good
overclocking capabilities. You can improve your chances of running at
200MHz by raising the voltage on the DIMMs a little. The MSI BIOS tells
you what's safe and what's not, just raise the voltage to the top of the
safe range.

Thank you very much.
I think I will go for 2*512MB premium DDR400 modules (doublesided? like the
ones I already have), and see if that works out in DDR200.
Otherwise I would handle bigger applications with more flaw.
But then I am concerned about HTT might drop to 800MHz...
anyway, your help has been much appreciated

 

[Ed Light]

Thank you for the answers much appreciated'
Foud out that my modules are doublesided.
That mean, that I can run only at DDR333 speed.

Try it anyway and run memtest86+ for a night and then prime95's torture test
for a night. Mine are double-sided.

Then I ask, is there a big slowdown of the system as a whole compared to
the "going from 1GB to 2GB"?
as said the lower RAM FSB slowdown is bad instead of getting 1 gig more of
ram?

On your present setup try some benchmarks at 400 and at 333 and you'll see
it makes just a little bit of difference.
The difference from 2 gigs depends on the application. It helps some games
alot. It gives you a really big system disk cache if your apps don't use it.


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[Ed Light]

You can improve your chances of running at
200MHz by raising the voltage on the DIMMs a little.

While usually true, there do exist dimms that won't like any increase, so
testing is in order.


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[Ed Light]

I think I will go for 2*512MB premium DDR400 modules (doublesided? like
the ones I already have), and see if that works out in DDR200.
Otherwise I would handle bigger applications with more flaw.
But then I am concerned about HTT might drop to 800MHz...
anyway, your help has been much appreciated

A matched set would be good.

Changing the memory ratio/speed won't change the HTT, which is the clock
speed times the HTT ratio, such as 200 x 5 = 1000.

However, lowering it to 800 (200 x 4) wouldn't be noticeable. It's faster
than it needs to be. You would lower it if overclocking much. Say you
overclocked the clock to 240, so you'd lower the ratio to 4. 240 x 4 = 960.
At 5x it would be 1200 and might not be stable. It's only rated for 1000.

You could experiment by lowering the HTT ratio and benchmarking to see if it
made a difference. Of course tweaking around can accidentally find a
combination of settings that can lock the board up, requiring a bios jumper
reset. But you could lower it from 5x to 4x and then to 3x. If you were
doing a big overclock with a slow chip, then you would need to use 3x. Like,
300 x 3x = 900, because 300 x 4x = 1200.


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[Guest]

The benefits of more RAM far outweigh the performance loss due to the
slower RAM clock (it's not an FSB, that term applies to Intel chips, on
AMD chips you have a RAM interface and and several HyperTransport buses
which together provide the functionality of an FSB). At most you'll see a
5% difference in performance on an individual program, but you'll be able
to handle much bigger applications and much more can be cached in RAM
which has an enormous benefit.

However if you spend a little more on your RAM you may be able to run at
200MHz even with double sided DIMMs. I have 4G in my X2 4400+ MSI K8N Neo4
system which works fine at 200MHz. When I had two pairs of cheap DDR
400 OCZ RAM I could only run at 166MHz, but when I replaced one pair with
better RAM I was able to run at 200MHz with no problems. My systems run
24/7 and they don't crash ever. Also the MSI boards have good
overclocking capabilities. You can improve your chances of running at
200MHz by raising the voltage on the DIMMs a little. The MSI BIOS tells
you what's safe and what's not, just raise the voltage to the top of the
safe range.

I strongly disagree. I had 3gb(2x1gb + 2x512mb) running at 333mhz and it
was ok. When I took out the pair of 512's and it ran 2gb at 400mhz, it blew
away the former config. The speed of the memory is the batter way to go as
that speeds up you whole PC. If I could easily find single-sided RAM, I
would max out the board.(Neo 4 Platinum).

 

[Guest]

Also, remove your paging file so that your RAM can do all of the work. I
would only advise for those with 2gb or more. Especially when using
Photoshop and other programs.

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

I strongly disagree. I had 3gb(2x1gb + 2x512mb) running at 333mhz and it
was ok. When I took out the pair of 512's and it ran 2gb at 400mhz, it blew
away the former config. The speed of the memory is the batter way to go as
that speeds up you whole PC. If I could easily find single-sided RAM, I
would max out the board.(Neo 4 Platinum).

Have you tried setting the memory to 200MHz?. The MSI K8N Neo4 gives you a
lot of control over the memory speed. I have four 1G double sided DIMMs in
my board and I'm running it at 200MHz without any problems. I had to
upgrade two of the DIMMs to get it to 200MHz, when I had 4 value DIMMs in
it the OS would occasionally lose interrupts.

 

[Guest]

Have you tried setting the memory to 200MHz?. The MSI K8N Neo4 gives you a
lot of control over the memory speed. I have four 1G double sided DIMMs in
my board and I'm running it at 200MHz without any problems. I had to
upgrade two of the DIMMs to get it to 200MHz, when I had 4 value DIMMs in
it the OS would occasionally lose interrupts.

That's an idea, but it is a costly experiment. What are you exact setting
for the RAM in the bios?

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

That's an idea, but it is a costly experiment. What are you exact setting
for the RAM in the bios?

I set the DDR clock to 200MHz and raised the DDR voltage to the maximum
safe voltage (MSI allows you to set it to an unsafe level if you want but
they clearly indicate which voltages are safe). I probably set the CAS
latency to 3 cycles but I don't remember.

 

[Guest]

I set the DDR clock to 200MHz and raised the DDR voltage to the maximum
safe voltage (MSI allows you to set it to an unsafe level if you want but
they clearly indicate which voltages are safe). I probably set the CAS
latency to 3 cycles but I don't remember.

Ok, thanks. I will buy some RAM and give it a go.

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

Ok, thanks. I will buy some RAM and give it a go.

My system worked at 200MHz with two OCZ value DIMMs and two OCZ
performance DIMMs, it didn't work when I had four OCZ value DIMMs. It
might just have been the luck of the draw but if you are going to buy more
RAM buy a pair of 1G performance DIMMs. If it that works you will only
have to buy 1 pair of DIMMs and you will be able to save the cheap DIMMs
that you have now. I was able to use the cheap DIMMs in my workstation
which had a pair of single sided DIMMs in it. The value DIMMs plus the
single sided DIMMs are able to run at 200MHz without any problems.