Memory Question for PC800Deluxe

[Andrew Stirling]

Just bought a PC800 Deluxe Motherboard and a Kingston 3500 'Twinx' Set
(KHX3500K2/1G (2 - 512MB)). Is this going to work on my board?

 

[jaeger]

Just bought a PC800 Deluxe Motherboard and a Kingston 3500 'Twinx' Set
(KHX3500K2/1G (2 - 512MB)). Is this going to work on my board?

Yes, but isn't this the sort of thing you want to ask BEFORE you
purchase?

 

[jdc1]

Work? YES. You didn't say how well tho. At default it will work fine.

 

[Pat]

Yes, but isn't this the sort of thing you want to ask BEFORE you
purchase?

True, but my guess is he wasn't so concerned about compatibility until
AFTER he read some research and got concerned. In the old days one
would make sure that his memory was at least as fast as what the
system required, which it looks like what was done here. These days
it is a lot more complex.

Anyway, I bought 2 sticks of Corsair 3500C2 and am fine as well. What
none of us know is whether or not these systems will allow 4 sticks of
said memory..

Pat

 

[Paul]

True, but my guess is he wasn't so concerned about compatibility until
AFTER he read some research and got concerned. In the old days one
would make sure that his memory was at least as fast as what the
system required, which it looks like what was done here. These days
it is a lot more complex.

Anyway, I bought 2 sticks of Corsair 3500C2 and am fine as well. What
none of us know is whether or not these systems will allow 4 sticks of
said memory..

Pat

What you don't know is if it will run 4 double sided PC3200 sticks at
DDR400. If you change the memory clock to run DDR320, I'm willing to
bet it'll work just fine with any ole crap PC3200 memory. So, you have
some options with the four stick config, it isn't DDR400 all or nothing.
You have a "fall back" option.

Paul

 

[Andrew Stirling]

Yes, but isn't this the sort of thing you want to ask BEFORE you
purchase?

Yeah. Fair point...
I'd read a memory review on anandtech which indicated these modules would
work fine and ordered them. They've only just came into stock so I still
have a chance to cancel. Whilst waiting I received my Motherboard and they
weren't on the recommended list. Also checked Kingston's website and looked
up suitable memory for my Motherboard and again they weren't amongst the
approved list. I kind of thought they would work but just needed some
reassurance as it's gonna be about 3 weeks before I can afford the processor

 

[Paul]

Paul seems kinda knowlegable.
I'm running my P4P800D at 10% AI overclock with Corsair CMX3500.
Turbo ON, MAM AUTO.
CPU-Z reports my P4 3.0C at 3.3mhz and my memory at 220x2. Fine.
Sisoft mem benchmark shows I get 5000,great. Here's the thing tho.
CPU-Z shows my mem at 220mhz 2.5- 4- 4- 8.
That's pretty conservative considering 2.5 3-3-7 rating. A pro guru
could do better.
I'm happy with results, but don't know where to go from here to get
my moneys worth. 2.5 4 -4- 8 indicates a oc guru could go further.

Any suggested setting adjustments welcomed. I only want to go cpu FSB
220-230 max as I don't have case cool enough to handle much higher.

The Mushkin site has a "Qualified Motherboard Qualification List", where
they test selected motherboards (click "DDR SDRAM", then scroll down to
see the link). For the P4P800, they indicate that the AI overclocking
feature doesn't do a good job - their claim is that the AI just cranks
the clocks without adjusting the memory timings. Your case seems to be
different, in that those numbers sound like the default values that
many BIOS use when you switch from an automatic to manual setting.

For the P4C800, Mushkin says: "The P4C800 uses an AMI BIOS that does
not correctly read the SPD and will, at DDR400 mode, automatically set
the latencies to 2.5:4:4 (CAS: tRCD: tRP), at least with the current
BIOS versions but an update may fix this." So, that sounds like your
symptoms right there.

In any event, the way you set the board may change every time the
BIOS is updated. Asus has in the past gone through "stages" with
their BIOS, where one release will have aggressive settings, users
start RMAing boards because they cannot get them stable, and then
a subsequent BIOS relaxes all the timings and destroys the
performance, to get stability back. This tuning process can continue
through several BIOS releases.

As I don't own the board, all I could do for you is read a few
thousand posts on Asusboards (abxzone.com), to try and make sense
of what settings work and don't work. There have been BIOS in the
past for other motherboards, where the manual settings don't get
applied properly, so sometimes it is very difficult to tell exactly
what is going on. Using a separate utility like CPU-Z is fine, as
long as the utility has been updated for the new hardware, and the
utility is known to get its settings directly from hardware. If the
utility just asks the BIOS what the settings are, then you might be
told the same lie.

Your memory performance is probably off about 3% due to the relaxed
timings, so I'll leave it to you to decide whether it is worth
fixing. You can always use Sandra (unbuffered memory benchmark)
to independently verify what settings are working and when.

Paul