FX-55 System Memory: Registered or Unbuffered?

[HAVOC]

A fellow techie friend of mine was at my house on friday night and we were playin' around with my gaming PC. FX-55 w/6800 Ultra in SLI. DFI LAN PARTY mobo. Anyway, we were tweaking al kinda of stuff.

When I opened up the case he remarked to me, "Why do you have unbuffered DDR400 with a FX-55?" "You should have registered DDR400 with that CPU." Now, i know what the difference between the two types is, but why would registered be better?" I thought that registered memory gives you much better stability and it's mostly used for highend servers. I also thought that unbuffered memory is much better for preformance. Anyone know?

I also looked on the AMD website and they also said that the FX-55 should be matched up with Registered Memory Modules. It doesn't make much sense to me at this point. I've got 2GIG of Corsair DDR400 XMS Proseries. They are awesome. 2.2.2.5 timings.
Can anyone shed any light on this subject?>

 

[Nubius]

When I opened up the case he remarked to me, "Why do you have unbuffered DDR400 with a FX-55?" "You should have registered DDR400 with that CPU."

Your friend doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. You use registered ECC memory with socket 940 motherboards and processors which are server boards........the FX originally was a server based processor on 940, but on 939 it's a good ole fashion monster desktop processor.


Registered ECC RAM is slower because that ECC stands for Error Correction Control I believe. Fixes errors within itself, that's why it's slower.

You need unbuffered so you are fine, and he is dumb

So slap him a good one.

EDIT: To clarify like I said, the FX original purpose was infact a server chip that's why AMD site will say use registered

 

[Alex81388]

I'm using unregistered. Proof that it works.

 

[HAVOC]

Yeah, that's basically what I told him nubius. He didn't agree with me though. Well, what do you want I guess, he works at compUSA. LOL- His FIX for everything is (Format the HDD & Reinstall Windows).

 

[ag3]

Use unbuffered (non ECC) RAM with the FX-55.

 

[PP Mguire]

haha my friends fix for everything is the same. he always looses critical info from his HD because of that. everytime he tells me he formated im like you are one stupid mother lol.

 

[HAVOC]

Use unbuffered (non ECC) RAM with the FX-55.

um - I am...

 

[ag3]

I'm aware of that.

 

[gaara]

I believe the FX-53 still uses registered memory and the FX-55 was the first true desktop processor, but I'm not entirely positive. ECC is geared towards servers because it has error checking built in which increases stability which is what you're aiming for in a server, but the error checking sacrifices performance which is where unbuffered memory memory gains an edge.

ECC is way too expensive for desktop use anyways.

 

[diabloII]

fx-55 was all 939, but fx-53 was part 939 and part 940