KWSN Orbiting Fortress

[Mildew]

This is a topic that usually reappears here from time to time, so here we go again...

One of my shrubbers have shrubbed its last shrub. I wish I could say I had nothing to do with its demise, but alas, I was attempting a BIOS update to be able to replace the X2 with an X4, and the rest as they say, is history.

The loss of a shrubber is unacceptable, and it must be replaced. Unfortunately, I'm a total AMD fanboy, so I know nothing about the Intel stuff. However, getting a 2.4 GHz Phenom seems like a pretty bad deal at a time when Intel is pulling ahead, so now I need help.

I'm thinking of getting a Q9550. This far all is well.

Then it gets all confusing, since apparently the FSB runs at one frequency, and the memory at another.
What's the deal with that?
If the FSB is 1333 MHz, what frequency should I get for the memory? 800? 1066?

Then there is the motherboard.
Looking at the chipset names, I am at a total loss.
I would like to get away as cheap as possible, and I don't use any of the flashy functions (no WiFi, no SLI, no raid, no gigabit net), but it must still be able to handle the pretty 'high-end' processor.

Please help!

[Yankton]

If you're going to build,

get a q6600 with a tuniq tower and run it up to about 3.6 GHz. You can go over 4 Ghz with liquid cooling. Plenty of good not so pricey motherboards out for it. get the 800 Mhz Ram, DDR3 isn't worth the money for it yet. I've been debating putting one of these together for myself, figured a pretty nice one would run around $800. If it is just to shrub and nothing else, you could do it cheaper, but then if it is just to shrub you could get a refurb from one of the big names for between $400 - $500 and let it go.
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[KWSN Im Not Dead]

I would go with a P45 chip set unless you intend to overclock (then go with a X48). I used this board <<link>> in my new machine with great success. You can get a cheaper motherboard, but I wanted it to also play games and allow a little overclocking down the road, so I paid a bit more for the MB.

As I understand it the "rule" on ram is to use ram that either matches the FSB or 1/2's it. So on a 1333 FSB chip, you would want either 1333 or 667 FSB ram. Installing something like 800 or 1066 will work, but you will actually see less performance than 667 or 1333. Lots of articles explain this better than I can. If you intend to overclock, then higher FSB the better as it gives you more headroom.

I asked a question about this a few months ago when I was looking at a 1066 FSB CPU and 1066 FSB ram. A good answer I got on this on a hardware forum:

To keep the memory explaination simple, assuming you are not overclocking, with DDR2 memory all you need is memory that is 1/2 the listed FSB of your processor. If you buy 'faster' memory, your mainboard will automatically 'slow down' the speed to the required speed. Thus, if you buy a processor that runs on 1066 FSB all you need is DDR2 533 memory. If you buy DDR2 800 memory, the mainboard will 'underclock' your memory down to DDR2 533 memory. This 'underclocking' isn't a speed reduction; its simply the speed it needs to run.

You can buy RAM that is the same speed as the FSB of the processor and run them together, but the 'real world' speed increase is 0.

The only reason some people buy faster memory than the required FSB speed are:

1. trying to future-proof yourself. If you buy a processor in the future that has a FSB of 1600, but your memory is only DDR 533, you will experience some slow down (or maybe the CPU won't run at all, I've never actually done this now that I think about it) so most people buy a bit faster memory so they won't have to buy more memory down the road.

2. Overclocking. When you 'overclock' your CPU you are increasing it's FSB. Your memory needs to be able to handle this or else your computer won't run. For example: your have DDR2 800 memory and a CPU that runs FSB 1066. You could overclock the CPU to run FSB 1600, up from 1066 (this would be an overclock of 50%). Then your memory and your CPU would both be running together at FSB 1600 speeds. If you only had DDR2 667 and tried the same thing, your overclock would crash as any FSB above 1333 (this is assuming you don't overclock the memory, which is simple as the mainboard controls it but is beyond the scope of this post).

As for the dual channel questions: you want your memory to run in dual channel mode, as this will get you some real world performance increase (but just a small bit, like 8% speed gain or so). As long as you are running the same speed and size of memory in each slot you should gain the dual channel bonus, so even if you buy 1GB of Corsair DDR2533 and 1GB of OCZ DDR533 (also assuming the same latencies and everything) they should run in dual channel mode. 2x1gb + 2 x 512gb will run in dual channel mode. 2x1gb + 2x1gb will also; just any 1 app can only use up to 3.(whatever)gb of the RAM.

These are just my best assumptions; I haven't researched memory in several months, so some of my stuff could be a bit fuzzy. In measurable terms; running 1066 memory instead of 533 memory in a proc running at 1066 FSB may get you an increase of 1-3% in benchmark performance (in real world terms: no difference). Running memory in dual channel mode nets gains of 8% ish (not really that big of a deal, but not as small an increase as the really expensive memory, and most of the time memory is sold in 'dual channel' kits, so this costs you nothing more).


As a result of that answer I paired my Q6600 with 533 FSB DDR 2 ram and I have not noticed any slow downs at all. I would not go with DDR3 unless you plan to keep this machine for a long time. Right now, as I understand it, we cant "max" DDR2, so DDR3 is basically overkill.
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KWSNImNotDead - "I don't want to go on the cart!". It is spelled LooNies.

[Mildew]

Thank you for the info.

Getting a q6600 didn't feel like an option. If I was aiming for something cheap to last me a year maybe, that was the original plan for upgrading the 4600+ to a Phenom 9650, but since I now need to spend a larger sum by being forced to get a new MB I thought I'd get something that would last me three years or so. Getting a cheaper processor and upgrading at a later time is also not an option since Intel is changing the socket (again... ).
I'm not a big fan of overclocking anyway. The shrubbers are in a pretty cramped space, and they run very warm.

Getting old 667 memory for such a new processor seems a bit weird to me, but I suppose the reasoning sounds logical. Good thing anyway, since that will mean I can reuse the old memory from the broken shrubber and just get a processor and MB.

I will give this some more thought though. Perhaps it would be a better idea to get two sets of slower quads and throw out the other (still working) 4600+ as well instead of getting one more expensive quad.

[Grizzly]

Throw throw throw the MoBo GENTLY down the stream , MERILY , MERILY , MERILY , MERILY , I will catch the thing !!

Regds Grizz .
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[Mildew]

You want me to send you a several years old broken motherboard?

Sure, PM me your address and I'll send it. I'll even include the (still working) processor

[Mildew]

Another question.

If it's not worth the extra money to get a higher clocked memory, would it be a better investment to get memory with lower latency?
Standard 800MHz DDR2 memory seem to be CL5, but you can get CL4 or even CL3 for about $15-$20 extra (for a 2GB kit).
Will the lower latency give a noticable difference in performance?