AMD Athon64 and memory...

[Cobra]

Hi guys,

I'm just about to take the plunge and order an XP3500 Winchester and an Asus SK8V motherboard.

I think I remember reading somewhere that this CPU may require registered memory. Can anyone tell me if this is true?

Many thanks,

Cobra

[BJ_M]

4 slots for DDR SDRAM DIMM (up to 8 GB of Registered DDR200/266/333/400 with/without ECC);

[Cobra]

I take it that I will be needing to buy all-new registered memory.

I continued hunting after I posted this, and came across this test:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-3200_6.html

...where they mention using non-registered memory with an Athlon64, but needing registered for the Opteron and FX CPUs.

Furthermore, this review specifically says that non-registered is fine:

http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/processorsmemory/0,39024015,39156318,00.htm

What do you think?

Cobra

[Cobra]

I've made a mistake. The SK8N is a socket940 motherboard, and the socket939 CPUs will not fit.

I have chosen the A8V, which supports:

4 x 184-pin DIMM Sockets support max. 4GB DDR400/DDR333/DDR266 non-ECC un-buffered DDR SDRAM memory

I assume that this will be OK with non-registered RAM!

Cobra

[bazooka]

I assume that this will be OK with non-registered RAM!

Yes

http://www.hexus.co.uk/content/reviews/review.php?dXJsX3Jldmlld19JRD03OTUmdXJsX3BhZ2U9Mg==

[Cobra]

Thanks bazooka - found the answer under "BIOS".

I've taken thr plunge and ordered all the kit. I'll be building at Christmas time.

Cobra

[bazooka]

Thanks bazooka - found the answer under "BIOS".

I've taken thr plunge and ordered all the kit. I'll be building at Christmas time.

Cobra

8)

It sounds like a mean machine.

[Cobra]

- AMD Athlon64 XP3500 Winchester
- Coolermaster Hyper48 CPU cooler
- Asus A8V motherboard
- 1.5GB low-latency, dual-channel RAM (Kingston & Corsair kits)
- nVidia GeForce FX5900 graphics card
- 200GB HDD storage (ATA133)

Naturally, all of this kit will be overclocked to the very limit.

Cobra

[waheed]

- AMD Athlon64 XP3500 Winchester
- Coolermaster Hyper48 CPU cooler
- Asus A8V motherboard
- 1.5GB low-latency, dual-channel RAM (Kingston & Corsair kits)
- nVidia GeForce FX5900 graphics card
- 200GB HDD storage (ATA133)

Naturally, all of this kit will be overclocked to the very limit.

Cobra

Wow , Nice specs.

Mine is going to be (after the new year):

AMD Athlon64 3500+ Winchester
Antec Neopower 480Watts PSU (already have)
Asus A8N SLI Deluxe motherboard
1 GB Ram (not decided yet which brand)
120 GB HDD (IDE) (already have)
Thermaltake towercase (already have)

After upgrading to the above, guess it would have dried my bank balance so will settle for the cheapest PCI-E GPU and plan to upgrade the GPU later on.

I also plan to upgrade my hard drive to SATA2 (3Gb/s) when released.

[Cobra]

Nice motherboard. Asus are definitely the way to go for solid, fast and reliable boards.

[ViRaL1]

New question...

I'll be building a new system for my mom, probably A64 / 939. If I want to go dual-channel, is it really necessary to buy a matched set of 512MB DDR, or should I be fine buying 2 of the same chips together as one order (but packaged separately)? Is there any real reason why I'd end up with 2 chips that don't work well in dual-channel mode if they're 'the same chip?'