Help me get more out of my Opty!!

[hmammen]

Well, I got my opty 165 from 1.8ghz to 2.25 ghz successfully. I know this chip can hit way higher clocks, but i think what is restricting me is my ram. I have crappy 1gb Corsair value ram. Can someone please verify that it is my ram blocking me from getting higher.
PS -the heatsink i have is the stock copper heatpipe cooler AMD sent with the opty. It works good i have heard, as people can get to clocks of 2.6ghz + on this stock heatsink.

So i guess i need better ram, can anyone suggest some good ddr400 pc3200 ram. Preferably 2X512mb. Thanks.

 

[Nagasama]

how low of a speed can you set your ram?
set it at the lowest, so that it is not restricting the cpu overclock. ie you are not overclocking your ram.
sorry dude i dont know too much about ddr ram and the good brands.

 

[hmammen]

Im not quite sure what you mean by lowering the RAM speed....I dont really want to mess with it, since this value ram is the only ram i have for now. I have been looking and found this ram and it looks like it has good timings-
Newegg.com - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail

 

[S0ULphIRE]

dude, cosair ram usually rocks! Whats the megahertz on your ram? and your fsb? because if u want to overclock your pc, then u gotta make sure you dont go past their limit!

 

[hmammen]

RAM= running at 204 mhz
FSB= running at 250mhz
Multiplier= x9
CPU= 2250 mhz(2.25ghz)

Corsair ram is usually god, but mine is the VALUE ram, not the expensive heatspreader stuff, so thats why i need to get better ram.

 

[Nagasama]

what i mean by ram speed is;
the frequency your ram is running at. okay, you say your ram is running at 204 mhz. that means that it is running at ddr 408, double the mhz, get it?
so, you are effectively overclocking your ram 8 mhz.
now, what may help is to set your ram speed lower, ie:
there is probably a section of your bios that is called 'advanced chipset settings' or maybe it will say something about memory settings. in this section you should have a selection of ram speeds, for ddr it would probably be:
DDR 200 (100 mhz)
DDR 266 (133 mhz)
DDR 333 (166 mhz)
DDR 400 (200 mhz)

now, yours is set to DDR 400. you need to set it below that speed, ie DDR 333 or 266. that way, as you raise your FSB, you are not raising the frequency of your ram above 400 mhz. your value ram cant handle running over its rated speed of 400mhz. because you are using the 9x multi, your rig is running at a cpu/11 divider (2250/11=204). if you want to keep your 9x multiplier, lower the ram speed in bios and you should be able to raise fsb quite a bit more(it will also raise the divider number(which is now 11), but i am not sure how much on your system)
another thing, drop your ht multiplier to at least 4, perhaps even 3.
this will have a big impact on its stability.
you can actually raise the ram farther than its rated speed, in some cases MUCH farther(i can run mine at over 500mhz, its rated at 400), but it usually takes the more expensive kind.
i dunno about that gskill ddr, but their ddr2 is supposedly an overclocking monster.

 

[MrCoffee]

My corsair value runs at 420mhz no probs, I seen people with better mobo take corsair value even higher (450!?) but dude you do know that you have to up the voltage right? (not too far or you'll fry that *****)

 

[hmammen]

Thanks for the replies, yea now i understand about the ram speed.
I will lower it to 133mhz and that way i can up my CPU.
and yes, mr. coffee, i have upped th voltage enough, thanks.

If the ram still is not putting out then i will just buy better ram.

 

[synergy]

Yea...if you put your RAM on a divider in the Genie BIOS settings > DRAM configuration screen then you should get some higher clocks.

To find out the max of your RAM and CPU you want to take the other out of the equation. For instance you will want to reduce your RAM (on a divider), set the CPU/FSB ratio to its default, and lower your LDT/FSB multi to find your max CPU mhz. I won't go into the details because it's lengthy, but you can find a very good guide here
As mentioned above you will need to supply more voltage to the CPU to increase stability, but too much will fry it so be careful.

To really get those higher speeds that you've heard about though you are going to need better RAM.