Good 939 overclocker with 4dimms populated?

[praeses]

Hi,

Currently I have an ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 with 2x1GB Corsair Value sticks in it. An Opteron 165 is churning along on that board at 9x268@1.25V(undervolted because it idles at 35C, I run it 24/7 usually rebooting every couple weeks for software updates). I am using a 5/6 memory multiplier (or 6/5 dividier if you'ld prefer) and running at command rate 1.

I am hoping to slap another two identical sticks of ram as I'm bordering on the 2GB threshold and also plan on going to a crossfire motherboard for the future. I am currently looking at the ASUS A8R-MVP Deluxe, although open to suggestions otherwise.

From what I have read, and my past experiences, K8's tend to not overclock nearly as well when all 4 dimms(double sided) are populated. Does anyone have any specific results when overclocking with 4DS Dimms in a 939 system? If so, what were your results and what timings/command rate?

I'm content with the current ram I have, as well as my processor and do not intend to upgrade to a core2/AM2 platform at this time.

TIA

 

[BUFF]

the A8R-MVP doesn't have a great rep as an overclocker, the A8R32-MVP is a lot better.

When you slap 2 more sticks in the CPU's memory controller will step the RAM speed down.
If you are running 32-bit Windows your system will probaby reserve most of the last Gb for addressing so you'll only get ~3GB showing in Windows.

 

[NaDa]

DFI CFX board is probably the best board for 939 but it's expensive.
Take a look also at the DFI RDX it's a bit cheaper. I have the A8R32-MVP and im satisfied it overclocks really well.
I didnt try the board on too much im currently running on a nforce3 mobo and I take a serious penalty for running 4x double sided dimms. I hope the A8R32 is much better at this.

The DFI is the best but it may be out of your budget. The ASUS is a nice board.
If you are looking any cheaper maybe the DFI Infinity boards could be good I dont know much about those.

 

[AdamBomb42]

What apps and OS are you using?

 

[praeses]

Currently I do streaming video to other people in the house as well as my 360 via the media extender (not a great load, but uses some ram) as well as capturing through media centre. I also generally have it sitting in mIRC / torrents trading anime on a regular basis and re-encode video from time to time. I don't really do any of the Seti, prime, or folding anymore.

Otherwise, in the foreground, I play WoW, general web browsing, the occasional FPS game (HL2/Quake4/UT2004/BF2142/Planetside) and sometimes watch movies on it as well. Usually combined with whatever is in the background it's starting to hurt on the ram side of things. Sometimes I Fraps as well. I do use vmware from time to time but usually do not keep it running steady, only use it for testing purposes. I plan on going to Vista as my base OS with much reluctance however using the full 4GB of ram would offset some of the performance hit.

BTW, I meant the '32' version of the board, my bad, a slip there. Thanks tho. The DFI board itself I am leaning somewhat away from as that would put my total upgrade costs a bit higher than I intended although I would love the board. So far from my local store it's looking like:

2x1gig=$200
Asus A8R32-MVP=$158
Video card unsure at this time, may pickup something cheap just to tide me over for a few months.

 

[AdamBomb42]

2 Gigs will be plenty for you.

 

[praeses]

2 Gigs will be plenty for you.
- AdamBomb42

I'm already being conservative of what programs I use at any given time. 2gigs currently is a hinderance. When you already have a fair amount of disk activity, paging really brings a computer to its knees.

 

[BUFF]

Also look at abit's AT8 & AT8 32X.
The AT8 was probably the best RD480 mobo & whilst the RD580s were all improved from the 480s you could make a strong argument for the AT8 32X too.
Tbh all 3 should be very similar.