Hyperx Kingston Ram

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mokaboy

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Hello all,

I have 2 sticks of 512mb pc3200 hyper x ram in my system and would like to know what people have there timings at? I do not know much about timings all i really know is the lower the better and how to change them. I also know hyperx are suppost to be gamers/overclockers ram so id like to take advantage. Currently after a little tweaking i have it on

CAS - 2.0
RAS to CAS delay - 3
RAS precharge - 2
TRAS - 5
TRC - 7
Command Rate - 1T
DRAM Idle timer - 256 clocks

Or so it tells me in CPUZ... i believe at the start of the computer is says its on 2-3-5-1 (1T) and in the SPD tab on CPUZ it says i have 2-2-2-6? why is this?

I have a MSI Neo3 motherboard with a AMD64 3400+ 754 processor.

What should i be aiming for in timings? is the timing that i have now good for the ram? is it good overall?

Im sorry if this question has been asked before, and thanks in advance for any replies :)

Moka
 
For timings, basically, the lower the better, and the smaller the numbers that come up first, the better (as in, the first number is more important than the second, which is more important than the third, etc).

I've got no idea why CPUz reports a different set of timings. I don't use CPUz (which I should).

One more thing you can do is actually increase the speed of the RAM, which should give you a better result. It is also known as overclocking, which is part of what you were doing when you're messing around with the timings, which is done after increasing the speed of the RAM.

Usually you'll increase the speed of the processor with it, for obvious reasons. But of course, it is possible to increase the speed of the RAM without increasing the speed of the processor via changing RAM:CPU ratio. You might want to mess around with that a little, as it would generally make your computer faster than just messing with timings.
 
oh yea i have overclocked my my bus speed to 210 (added 10) which gives me 120 more mhz. Does show when loading games etc. I understand most of the overclocking methods i just wanted to make sure i was getting the most out of my ram and basically wanted someone to tell me what to aim for with my sticks. What timings. :)
 
What timings are best?

You might as well ask what overclock is best: it is unanswerable. It is different for every single different piece of RAM.

The only way I can answer that is if you sent your whole computer to me, and I looked for those timings myself.

Actually, I'd have to go over to your place and do it there, as the humidity and temperature of the surroundings will impact what sort of timings I can get.

If you can get 2-2-2-6, thats pretty good.
 
what about the command rate thing? 1T or 2T? ill try 1T now brb (restarting)

nah 2-5-3-2 is what i think i have now

when you say 2-2-2-5 in what order are they?

i mean like

does it go in this order TCL > TRAS > TRCD > TRP ??

sorry if this is a nooooooooob question
 
tCAS-tRCP-tRP-tRAS

The last one doesn't matter so much, and basically, you look for the lowest value for the tCAS, then the lowest for tRCP, then tRP, then tRAS.

The other values I believe are not so important, as they are rarely talked about, maybe except command rate, but thats always at 1 or 2T, again lower the better. I think this one's the most important, but it makes the most difference, and usually you can't bring it to 1T.
 
thanks alot, gd advice.ill see what i can get.

Edited by Moderator: Removed quote. There`s no need to quote the post directly above your own, unless you`re only replying to a specific section, in which case you would only quote that section. ;)
 
But if I were you, I'd bring it back to stock timings, and increase that speed as much as I could first.
 
ok all i could achieve was 2-3-2-6 1T i may be able to get the last one down to 5, ill try in a min... i just got the message 'windows has just recovered from a serious error' lol

kk ill bring it back to stock and ill overclok it now as much as poss... just need to find out what values where!?
 
alright. Make sure you know what you're doing. I've written a simple overclocking guide, with some extra information which might be interesting. Doesn't cover timings though. You might want to read it, at least the WHY section.
 
Hi mokaboy,

the fastest possible timings for DDR RAM is 2-2-2-5, these are the timings you should aim for.

I also use Kingston HyperX PC3200 RAM (2 x 512MB). My particular sticks are rated for 2-3-2-6-1T @200MHz. I have not been able to set them any lower, without reducing the clock speed.

as for your CPU-Z readings... the SPD tab displays information that is programmed into your RAM's "SPD" (Serial Presence Detect) chip. this information never changes regardless of what you have manually set in your BIOS.

the "Memory" tab displays the actual timings and clock speed. this is the only tab you need to view when overclocking your RAM. what clock speed and timings does your "Memory" tab read?

:wave:
 
lol, couldn't remember if it was 2-2-2-5 or 2-2-2-6, but the difference should be minimal anyway.

Also, you might get better overclocks if you loosened your timings. Like mentioned, the speed is more important than the timings. Most of the time anyways, so we won't worry about it. Might be interested in setting it to 3-3-3-8 after getting the highest clock on your other timings. Maybe 4-4-4-12. After reaching the highest overclock after loosening timings, tighten them again as mentioned, one at a time, until you can't lower the numbers anymore.


And this obviously goes deeper than the simple guide I wrote, as it will double the time required to get to the "end" of the overclock, with not as significant gains.
 
Thanks alot for both your advice.

i have set my clock to 218, this seems to be the highest/stable i can get it. CPU is now from 2400mhz to 2616mhz.

thanks for the timing info also KingCody, ill keep it at this for now see how much of an improvement it has made with everyday/games/work use then overclock some more using that method (higher timings higher clock). Thanks alot again, i love this forum :)

Moka

ps - attachted is info u requested kingcody thanks for clearing me up on memory in cpuz makes sense now
 
ok just to update i got the last one down to 5

from 2-3-2-6 to 2-3-2-5 this is what its running at now and it seems to be alot faster so far!! can really notice it. :)
 
2-3-2-6-1T is still very good.

EDIT: now you're at 2-3-2-5, even better :)

since your system crashes above 218MHz system BUS, it's probably your RAM that's holding you back. PC3200 is only guaranteed to run at 200MHz, so 218+ is probably pushing it too far.

however, that doesn't mean that you can't keep overclocking your CPU further. it just means that you need to set a higher memory divider. RAM speed on a Athlon64 system is determined by a divider of the CPU internal clock speed. your current divider is 12, if you set a higher divider such as 14 then your RAM will operate at 186MHz which gives you an additonal 15~30 MHz extra headroom to push your CPU even higher.

you will notice the highest gains from overclocking the CPU (even at the expense of slowing the memory down to achieve it).

:wave:
 
hmm?

I can push my PC2700 RAM furthur than 218.... Not sure if it was running 1T though, but tCAS was 2. Seems like a long long time ago, I can't even remember my timings now on my P4....

But I'm sure that I hit 230 at least, I tried 235 and the PC wasn't stable, so I gave up. Bear in mind I only went to the max Intel recommended voltage for CPU, and I'm pretty sure if I dared go any higher, it would've (1.55, vs 1.65V they usually use to get max overclocks on my CPU).

If you're feeling lucky, you might want to increase voltages on your CPU, but I would recommend you understand fully the risks you're taking with increasing the voltage. This is where most CPUs are fried, and you're greeted with green smoke. Try to look for max recommended voltage for your CPU, and increase it to that (its recommended, so it should be fine. Most people go way over this and are still fine). Not the easiest thing to do, but there's a link in my overclocking guide (right at the bottom) which has a nice summary of recommended temps and voltages for AMD and Intel CPUs.
 
i have a slight problem.

i was just playing command and conquer 3 :p to test temps etc... the game crashed after a while brang me back to desktop looked at temp and it was 56oC

It was idleing around 45oC. is this safe? and why did it crash? because of the memory timings? 2-3-2-5 instead of 2-3-2-6? or because it got too hot?

I thought the AMD processors could run ok up to 70oC so i dnt think its that?

After the pc crashed back to desktop i was typing a new post and the whole pc froze :S what do you think it is?

Moka
 
Kingston's HyperX series is very good RAM. they operate at very tight timings at their default clock speed, but they do not overclock very well.

my HyperX PC3200's max out around 220MHz at 2-3-2-6-1T. (increasing voltage didn't allow it to clock any higher either). the only way to increase it's clock speed is to [deeply] relax the timings, and even after doing this it still maxes out at around 250MHz. in this case the loss outweighs the gains.

also, Pentium4's and Athlon64's are very different animals that require different settings to achieve optimal performance with regards to memory clock speed and timings. Pentium4's benefit more from the higher bandwidth achieved by increasing memory clock speed. Athlon64's on the other hand are not bandwidth starved and benefit more from tighter timings.

in either case, it is best to try it both ways and use benchmarks to see which method results in the best performance.

EDIT: sheesh I take too long to respond... lol. mokaboy posted twice since i opened the reply window! anyways, Athlon64's have a max operating temp of 65°C. if your system is running in the high 50's then you need to improve your cooling before you overclock any more. this may be as simple as "dusting" the heatsink with compressed air, or it may require upgrading to an aftermarket cooler.

BTW, you should use the edit button instead of posting multiple replies ;)

cheers :wave:
 
Hmm... I always forget the small nitty gritty details....

But its still weird that your PC3200 can't perform as well as my cheap PC2700, even after loosening the timings.
 
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