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Old July 23rd 03, 01:35 AM
R_Supp
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"Paul" wrote in message
...
In article , "Devast8or"
wrote:

Hi all,

I wanna buy this board

http://www.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=A7V8X-X&langs=01
(an A7V8X-X), but RAM should I get for it?

As far as I can see PC1600 and PC2100 should be any problem, no matter

how I
do it. PC3200 would work if I only use two banks (Do I _have_ to use two
banks, or is one fine?). But what about PC2700? It says "PC2700 Max to 4
banks only", but the board only has three mem banks.

I'm confuzzled. What RAM should I buy for this board?

TIA

Devast8or

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When buying a -X board, download the original board manual, and the
-X board manual and compare them carefully, to see what functionality
they are missing. For example, the A7V8X has adjustable AGP voltage and
the A7V8X-X does not. There was a guy yesterday who was having what I
thought were AGP problems, but I couldn't reply to him "Adjust the AGP
voltage", because it is missing on that board. So, be careful when
buying the -X boards, because some have too much functionality removed.
This advice also applies if you plan on overclocking, as some of the
-X boards don't have the same clock adjustments.

To answer your question, a double sided DIMM is two banks. A single
sided DIMM is one bank. So, the PC3200 limit is one double sided DIMM
or two single sided DIMMs. The PC2700 limit is two double sided DIMMs
or a double sided plus two single sided DIMMs. The stated limits in the
manual have to do with signal reflections, and they get worse with
clock rate - that is why Asus recommends fewer "loads" on the memory
bus at higher memory clock speeds. Some memories are slightly better
than others in this respect, but there is no way of predicting which
brands are good (designs change too much to make this something you
can depend on year after year).

To figure out what brand of ram to buy, search in groups.google.com
and see whether people report the board as being "finicky" or
"sensitive" to the ram being used. If there are a lot of reports like
that, then buy branded RAM. If any ram seems to work, in the posts you
read, then try a generic RAM. If you are trying to max out the memory
on the board, expect to pay more for RAM to get it to work reliably.
In other words, placing a single 512MB stick in there (double sided),
probably any brand will work. Use the slot furthest from the processor,
when using a single stick. Use slots 1 and 3 for two sticks.

I am not clear here but does using slots 1 and 3 apply to single sided ram
too ?
I am using this board too and my original stick of ram was a very generic
stick of Chinese ram, DDR400 @ 512 Mb. My CPU is an Athlon XP Tbred-b 2400.
Running Win XP Pro and using the latest AIDA 32 Enterprise version I was
getting a ram benchmark putting my system only 1 notch above a Duron 900
system.
I returned the single stick and got 2x s/sided sticks of Kingston DDR400
making 512Mb and this lifted my AIDA benchmark to the same level as in the
next paragraph. I expected higher as this A7V8X-X system is a tad faster
than my A7V333 system.

The confusion really sets in when my AV7333 system using XP 2000 chip and 2x
s/sided sticks of DDR333 ram @512Mb gives me a benchmark in the right area
for my system but puts the A7V8X-X in the same spot.
I am sorry for rambling on but I can see where Devast8or is coming from.
It just seems to me that if you can get the ram right, these boards are
quite fine.