Faster benchmarks @ lower Frequency? Huh?

[bengance]

Not sure why, but my DDR RAM performs better at 133 mhz then 200 mhz. Here the situation:

Abit NF-S2 Socket A w/ nForce Ultra 400 chipset
AMD Athlon XP 2000+ Palomino @ 1.67 ghz

Benchmarks using Performance Test 6.0
===================================
Orginal RAM @ 133 mhz (Baseline2 in Picture)
512mb PC2100 No-name brand DDR RAM 2.5 - 3 - 3 - 7 = 243.6 benchmark score

New RAM @ 200 mhz: (Baseline 3)
1gb PC3200 Kingston ValueRam 3-3-3-8 = 248.5

New & Old RAM @ 133 mhz: (Baseline1-5gb)
1.5gb Mixed RAM 2.5-3-3-7 = 264.5

New RAM @ 133 mhz: (1gb-133)
1gb PC3200 Kingston ValueRam 2.5-3-3-7 =263.2

Any ideas folks?

 

[tommyboy123x]

i have the same thing with my gpu, i assume it is because it is "too fast" making it not optimal and it is uncontrolable or something... Also there may be some kind of combatibility with your memory because i am assuming you have a 1 gig stick and another 512, so that could conflict in some wierd way

wait for someone else to post with more info, i dont know all that much about this

 

[hercules_upw]

In my opinion, the answer to your question is right there in the data you have listed.

The lower the timings on the RAM the better the scores are.

New RAM at 3-3-3-8 = 248.5
New RAM at 2.5-3-3-7 = 263.2

Seems fairly clear to me.

Also, if the Front Side Bus speed is @ 133 MHz on your processor, Your RAM is running at 133MHz dosen't matter how fast the RAM is.

Now overclock that processor and crank out some REAL scores!!

Hope this helps.

 

[Flanker]

i have the same thing with my gpu, i assume it is because it is "too fast" making it not optimal and it is uncontrolable or something... Also there may be some kind of combatibility with your memory because i am assuming you have a 1 gig stick and another 512, so that could conflict in some wierd way

wait for someone else to post with more info, i dont know all that much about this

When you overclock the videocard too far, it gets hot and/or unstable. It then underclocks itself, giving you a lower 3DMark score. If you're getting a lower score at a higher frequency (noticeably lower) then you've overclocked too far.

 

[bengance]

Ah, I see. I just assumed that the higher RAM frequencies would coorelate directly to better clock speeds. It seems the inverse is true as my BIOS (and Kingston) relax the clock speeds to keep the system stable at a higher frequency.

so ideally, I overclock my CPU, get my RAM at 200mhz for my PC3200 and put my clock speeds as low as possible?

 

[hercules_upw]

Ideally, you would achieve the following:

1. Front Side Bus Speed se to 200Mhz (Same as the new RAM.)
2. Multiplier set at 11. That would be 3200+ speeds.
3. CPU temp below 55 degrees C at FULL LOAD.
4. Only the "new" RAM installed ( the old RAM will cause the new stuff to run at 133MHz)
5. Stable system

It's unlikely, but that ,in my opinion, is the best you will do.

According to the stuff i looked up, your processor runs at 133mhz x 12.5 multiplier (133*12.5 = 1662.5 or ~1.67Ghz)

You should take some time to research the overclocking process.

The optimal overclock for your situation would be something like FSB speed set at 200MHz and multiplier set somewhere between 9 and 11.

The real key here is getting the Front Side Bus (FSB) speed to 200MHz. That is the maximum speed that your motherboard supports and it's also the speed of your new RAM. Now be warned that if you use your old ram that runs at 166MHz, ALL THE RAM will run at that speed and any overclocking you do will just be a waste of time. so just use the new RAM to get maximum performance.

Take you time doing this. ramp things up slowly thru the BIOS. Don't use a windows-based program to overclock.

A lot of the AMD processors have the multiplier "locked", so you may be limited to raising the FSB speed alone. (If this is the case you probably won't get the FSB speed to 200) 200*12.5= 2.5 GHz!--> Very unlikely, and probably won't boot at this speed.

Palomino processors run kinda hot, so watch those temps. If things get too hot, you're done going up. back things down a bit. I would recommend that you try not to exceed 55 degrees Celcius under full load.

Now i personally have not worried much about the Latency of the RAM. You should be able to adjust the timings, but a lot of times the system becomes unstable. Initially, set the RAM at the MFG's settings, do the overclock then you can play with timings if you want to.

Final note: Overclocking your system can damage the processor, so do your homework and read up on overclocking before you attempt this....

Good Luck!

 

[bengance]

Wow, thanks for the detailed recommendations. I tried to play around with the FSB yesterday in the BIOS w/o changing the multiplier, but as you pointed out, it didn't even boot.

I'll take another shot at it later. If worse comes to worse and I fry my CPU, at least I'll have a good excuse to give my wife for a new computer!

 

[bengance]

Thanks to hercules_upw recommendation I overclocked my first system. The multiplier is locked and I don't have much desire to superglue my L1 cache, so I just notched up to the FSB a bit. I might try to go higher and increase the voltage a little. But I was crashing quite a bit during benchmarking @ 140mhz FSB (with and without the old PC2100 ram).

Right now I have a 138.5mhz FSB, same 12.5 multiplier (1.73 ghz), the new & old ram at 2.5-3-3-6. Seems to work fine. My new score is 269.5, about a whopping 1.1% increase. But it was fun.