1024mb Crucial Value testing

C

(cf)Eclipse

Freelance Overclocker
Joined
Feb 18, 2003
Messages
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I have recommended 1024mb sticks of Crucial Value to many people lately, with the assumption that it will overclock well, and go down to tight timings at stock speeds, but without really knowing for sure. This uncertaincy bothered me, so I ended up ordering a stick of the stuff from newegg on thursday (6-16-05), and it got here on the next tuesday (yesterday now)

here's a nice pretty picture, showing the high density -5B D chips:
5b-D.JPG




I have been somewhat busy since then, but despite this, the ram has been pushed to it's limits when I had the time. Before I start off with the screens, I'll say some things that I have found.

1. Voltage.. doesn't do anywhere near as much as I was expecting.. not until I get to the upper mhz at least. In some cases (2.5-2-2), 2.6-2.7v was optimal :eek:
2. Timings. I was expecting better overclocking at tight timings than what I got. The fact that it actually does do tight timings is awesome, but some more headroom would make me feel better
3. Mhz scaling. Considering the oc'ing results of the other 'good' 1gb sticks (exluding ballistix, which is basically the top bin of the chips that go into the value ram), this stuff impresses me. That said, it's nowhere near as good as a 512mb stick would be, mostly in regards to the timings needed.




Now, for the things that I managed to pull off with the stuff being memtest stable so far (or very very close to it. any errors = bad, and i go back to retweak)

Tightest timings possible without going under 200mhz: 2.5-2-2
This.. was easy to do, but hard to find the top end, as Vdimm and various secondary timings were fiddled with for a long time trying to eek out those last 3mhz :p

2.5-2-2.PNG




Next, trying to find the next lowest set of timings that would yeild the biggest mhz increase. This turned out to be increasing Trcd to 3 for 2.5-3-2. This yeilded a decent increase in clocks over 203mhz

2.5-3-2.PNG




After this, a bit of tweaking was done. 2.5-3-3 only got me to 224mhz, and 3-3-2 was the same, so 3-3-3 it is! Note that one of the secondary timings was relaxed a bit to accomodate the speed. I'm kinda surprised that nothing else really needed tweaking aside from the two latency settins (max async and read preamble)

3-3-3.PNG





and now! something to make all you high voltage fans happy :p
voltage does NOTHING! I went from 251mhz at 2.8v to 257mhz at 3.1v.. just 6mhz?!

and for the higher timings/mhz crowd.. again, nothing! i think this is partially my mobo's fault though, being weird with ram, but i couldn't get any higher at 3-4-4 than 3-3-3 :(
 
wow, is that the same stuff i ordered? :p
maybe for once i will have bought something that overclocks well.
 
not bad at all.....speicaly for value ram......hopefully it will work better in the Neo :p
good luck with that Eclipse


soulsaver_8229
 
meh, i hate not having time to play with my hardware

3-3-3, still with 2.8v and 250mhz. not sure if it's 100% stable, but it appears to be ;) :p

3-2-3 and 3-3-2 definitly don't work, and 2.5-3-3 doesn't really boot :(
 
well i've basically got everything sorted and topped out now, just playing with 1024mb + 2x512mb :p

i'll post some screenies in a while :D
(note, i'll just edit the first post for em)
 
i'll probably actually start gaming for once when everything settles down.. put this 2.75ghz newark and 6800gt to good use :p
 
(cf)Eclipse said:
i'll probably actually start gaming for once when everything settles down.. put this 2.75ghz newark and 6800gt to good use :p
Click to expand...

i keep saying ill start gaming once my rig is quiet, and now that i have water, i think i will actually start using it for gaming. my 6600gt and 2.6ghz need to get some good use too.

and about the boobs thing, i told (cf) id do it for my 1024th post.
 
hey there, this is my first post in a long time!

Ordered 1 stick of this stuff yesterday to update my rig to 2GB. Mostly for games... EQ2 and BF2 eat ram like crazy. It should probably get here by Friday, so I'll post my results sometime soon hopefully.

btw, nice job, get those 2x512 + 1024MB pics up ;p. Thats exactly what i'll be running on my NF2, so I'm interested to see what the max stable timings you can get are with everything thrown in.
 
I have those same mem chips. I have to say I am not impressed. can't do 1 T with a 3500 Venice. I thought they updated the memory controller.
 
maybe you got duds, that doesnt seem right. its only 2x512, not 4x512. i think the processor might be faulty.
 
I started playing around with the timings.

This is what I have now.

CPU-Z Report
CPU-Z version 1.29.
CPU(s)
Number of CPUs 1

Name AMD Athlon 64 3500+
Code Name Venice
Specification AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+
Family / Model / Stepping F F 0
Extended Family / Model F 2F
Brand ID 4
Package Socket 939
Core Stepping E3
Technology 0.09 µ
Supported Instructions Sets MMX, Extended MMX, 3DNow!, Extended 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, x86-64
CPU Clock Speed 2485.6 MHz
Clock multiplier x 11.0
HTT Bus Frequency 226.0 MHz
L1 Data Cache 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L1 Instruction Cache 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Cache 512 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Speed 2485.6 MHz (Full)
L2 Location On Chip
L2 Data Prefetch Logic yes
L2 Bus Width 128 bits

Mainboard and chipset
Motherboard manufacturer
Motherboard model nForce,
BIOS vendor Phoenix Technologies, LTD
BIOS revision 6.00 PG
BIOS release date 04/01/2005
Chipset nVidia nForce3 250 rev. A1
Southbridge nVidia nForce3 MCP rev. A2
Sensor chip Winbond W83627THF

Graphic Interface AGP
AGP Status enabled, rev. 2.0
AGP Data Transfer Rate 4x
AGP Max Rate -1x
AGP Side Band Addressing supported, enabled
AGP Aperture Size 128 MBytes

Memory
DRAM Type DDR-SDRAM
DRAM Size 1024 MBytes
DRAM Frequency 226.0 MHz
FSB:DRAM CPU/11
CAS# Latency 2.5 clocks
RAS# to CAS# 3 clocks
RAS# Precharge 2 clocks
Cycle Time (TRAS) 8 clocks
Bank Cycle Time (TRC) 11 clocks
DRAM Idle Timer 16 clocks
# of memory modules 2
Module 0 Micron Technology DDR-SDRAM PC3200 - 512 MBytes
Module 1 Micron Technology DDR-SDRAM PC3200 - 512 MBytes
 
Did u get Ballistix, or the regular crucial 1 gig stick?

cause in this picture there is no heatspreader.

http://www.freewebs.com/cfeclipse/5b-D.JPG[IMG]


If you are doing that good on their value ram then ima buy some.

So was it this,

[url]http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.Asp?IMODULE=CT12864Z40B[/url]

or this.

[url]http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.Asp?IMODULE=BL12864Z503[/url]
 
How you get your cpu and chipset temps so low? My room temp is hotter than your cpu. You have an AC running into your Case?
 
Wow.

I never knew their value stuff could hit 250MHz. That's sweet.

You get it from newegg, crucial, or where>?
 
Autochthon said:
How you get your cpu and chipset temps so low? My room temp is hotter than your cpu. You have an AC running into your Case?
Click to expand...

Mine also has a low temp of about 26C (about 80F I believe?) up to about 40C at its highest after prolonged load, and thanks to my Thermalright XP-90 & CoolerMaster Windtunnel case, drops back to the low thirties within a minute or two.
 
foofighter06 said:
Did u get Ballistix, or the regular crucial 1 gig stick?
Click to expand...
first can i ask you not to hotlink my pictures? i've got very little bandwidth to work with from my host :(
and it's value ram, as was pointed out. i got it from newegg, ordered last thrusday.

Autochthon said:
How you get your cpu and chipset temps so low? My room temp is hotter than your cpu. You have an AC running into your Case?
Click to expand...
chipset has a 40mm fan, cpu has a TDX ;)
 
(cf)Eclipse said:
cpu has a TDX ;)
Click to expand...

I keep toying with the idea of getting in to WC, but so far it seemed like a lot of work and expense for little to no gain...any feedback?
 
it's nice if you need to use hardcore voltages when benching.. but it really is a pain most of the time (although quite fun :D)


edit: as a side note... trying to find the top end at 2.5-2-2.. it seems that less voltage is better, but i'm only getting errors in test 6 instead of test 5 like i normally do :confused:
 
ashmedai said:
Mine also has a low temp of about 26C (about 80F I believe?) up to about 40C at its highest after prolonged load, and thanks to my Thermalright XP-90 & CoolerMaster Windtunnel case, drops back to the low thirties within a minute or two.
Click to expand...

Well I probably top out ver near the same temps under load when I'm at 1.4V but my idle is 30 - 32C. but then the air flowing into the case is like 29.5C. Getting my room air cool enough to get down to 26 would buy me a new computer just in air conditoning electricity bills ;)

No water for me the only benefit I'd expect to see is a bit less fan noise maybe a bit higher video clocks but then I'm incrediblely bad at those game's that seem to need fast video anyhow (ie doom and there ilk)
 
bump to let you guys know that the first post has been edited and the thread is open again :D
 
Great writeup and summary. You covered like every possible scenerio. After deeply analyzing the Crucial value, think the overall winner would be 4x512 twinmos or 2x1gb of these crucial sticks.
 
and they are around the same price. for most people the 2x1gig seems like the choice, as twinmos needs 3.4v+ to do 250 2-2-2 and thats at 2t and the 2x1gig of crucial can do 250, not at respectable timings, but 1t.

and btw, very nice guide to the crucial -5b d's. i might need to make up a story for the origin of micron 5-b d.
 
n64man120 said:
Great writeup and summary. You covered like every possible scenerio. After deeply analyzing the Crucial value, think the overall winner would be 4x512 twinmos or 2x1gb of these crucial sticks.
Click to expand...
thanks guys :D i try, esp since i'm kinda on the line for saying these sticks are good, i better be able to prove it ;)

as for 4x512mb vs 2x1gb.. i think 250mhz at 1.5-2-2 and 2T is roughly the same as 250mhz at 3-3-3 and 1T, go with whichever you like better. in my case, the former isn't an option, only having 3 ram slots :p
also, if you lack the voltage, 2x1gb is definitly the choice, as more than 2.8v was basically useless.

and ccu, yes. hop to it :D
 
Where can I get two of these 1gb sticks?

edit: Great! When I checked newegg earlier they were out of stock. nice to see they must have got them back in.
 
i guess you missed the linkage to newegg in the very first paragraph? :eek: :rolleyes: :p


as a side note.. the PCB is much thicker than the one for my 128mb value ram and 512mb ballistix :eek:
 
(cf)Eclipse said:
as a side note.. the PCB is much thicker than the one for my 128mb value ram and 512mb ballistix :eek:
Click to expand...

Doesn't that generally have implications as far as the module's ...er, durability I guess, likelyhood to be and remain stable, something like that?
 
i'm not sure, i'm guessing the higher density sticks require a PCB with more layers..

i'm not complaining though, it has a nice rugged feel to it.
 
Only problem I'd have with goin 4x512 twinmos (DFI has the juice for it), would be it getting far too hot around the ram once it's overclocked since I'd prefer non-active cooling to keep noise down. Knowing there more or less equal is good to know though
 
Eclipse, do you actively cool the RAM in your computer?

I've got a Shuttle, and it would be highly inconvenient to mount a fan to actively cool the RAM. So I'm curious.
 
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