ASUS A8N-SLI Premium RAM suggestion

[drpcken]

I bought an ASUS A8N-SLI Premium last year and it runs pretty good with the 2 gigs of RAM i salvaged from my old machine. But its time to upgrade to the maximum of 4 gigs that it will support. Considering the board, which RAM will run the fastest with it? I just want to make sure I get the best for it.

I'm running a GeForce 8800 GTX graphics card and AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+ processor. (i wish I had known socket 939 wasn't widely used before I bought it).

Any suggestions will be very appreciated!
Thanks!

 

[drpcken]

Here's the fastest it supports (I think).

What do you think?
http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?IMODULE=CT2KIT12872Z40B

 

[Mondoman]

Yes, that's right.
You might consider buying a GA-P35-DS3L MB for $90 or so, an e2160 CPU for $70 or so (which is faster than your current CPU, and much faster when OC'd), and 4 GB of DDR2 RAM for $80 or less.
Selling your current RAM and system might offset half or more of the cost.

 

[drpcken]

Wow thats great looking board. All I've ever known is ASUS though, but I'd be willing to try something new. The only feature I don't see is SLI, but thats more of a gimmick anyway, right?

Also the e2160 says 2 core 1.8ghz, while my 3800+ is 2 core 2.0 ghz. Am I missing something?

Thanks for your reply!

 

[EXT64]

Well, there would be no point right now in SLIing with your current CPU, so it isn't doing anything for you now.

The e2160 is faster clock-for-clock, so it is actually faster at 1.8GHz. It can, however, OC a TON! Once fully OC'ed it will be quite nice.

Your X2 3800 can OC too, though. Have you tried that yet? I'd suggest that before you replace it.

Also, about the 4GB. Are you sure you need it? I've found 2GB plenty, unless you have Vista, of course. 4 DIMMs won't run as fast as 2 DIMMs either. I actually fried the SLI in my A8N-SLI Deluxe by putting four DIMMs in while leaving the command rate at 1T. I also had to back off the timing from 2-2-2-5 to 2-3-3-6.

 

[drpcken]

Wow I've never had to mess with the Timing or command rate. How will I know I need to change it?