jawwadshaukat

Distinguished
Jun 15, 2008
20
0
18,510
The problem is that when I use single RAM in mobo, it gets working @ 200Mhz (using CPU-Z).But when I use both the speeds gets to 166Mhz and work in Single Channel, both RAMs are however identical.

Why is this happening? I am also not satisfied with RAM speeds (READ=1812Mb/s WRITE=803Mb/s)(Using Everest). Is this the best I can get?

My Processor P4 2.53Ghz Northwood.
My mobo is ASUS P4V8X-MX (chipset VIA P4M800).
The mobo has two RAM slots and supports DDR400, although I am not sure whether its Dual Channel or not.
The RAM TWO(2x)=Kingston KVR400X64C3A/512 (512Mb PC3200)
The RAM is mobo supported. Its in QVL(Qualified Vendors List).

Thanx.
 

jawwadshaukat

Distinguished
Jun 15, 2008
20
0
18,510
Thanx for reply.
That settles it, So is it better to use single only 512Mb, or any overclocking would help?
Also not satisfied with RAM speeds (READ=1812Mb/s WRITE=803Mb/s)(Using Everest). Is this the best I can get?
 

slicessoul

Distinguished
Apr 18, 2006
771
0
18,980
I don't think this mainboard BIOS support overclocking.

Those 2 sticks of RAM, give you a total 1GB RAM. 1GB are better than 512MB. Maybe they'll run on lower bus because of 2 sticks are installed, but i don't think they'll bottlenecked the CPU.

It's the best that mobo can give you.

 

jawwadshaukat

Distinguished
Jun 15, 2008
20
0
18,510
Thanx Again.
What r the shortcomings of slow ram then, games in particular, apart from slow loading or slow fps too?
How can I get the most out of this, will setting latency etc will do any good?
 

slicessoul

Distinguished
Apr 18, 2006
771
0
18,980
What kind of games ?
Are you playing games with the onboard GPU ?

Setting latency can give a positive and negative impact. The positive impact is your PC overall performance will be better/faster. The negative impact is instability.
If your RAM support a lower latency and the mainboard can give the power that the RAM need, then there's no problem, but if you force it , you need to do some trial and error for the stability.
 

jawwadshaukat

Distinguished
Jun 15, 2008
20
0
18,510
No, I have 7600GT on AGP.
What I wanted to ask was, does slow RAM make games jitter, low fps or just slow loading.
Could u guide me where to get more info on tuning RAM ?
 

slicessoul

Distinguished
Apr 18, 2006
771
0
18,980
RAM is never slow. Their capacity made your PC slow if it's not enough. Here is how it is :
You have 1GB RAM, your OS is Windows, there are firewall, antivirus and other background services running totalled of 200-300MB RAM utilization. Your free RAM is +/- 700MB. Now you run the games, this games will eat around 600MB. This is not an exact calculation. Your firewall, antivirus and other services will fluctuate eating your RAM scanning games files. Your OS will start working to swap those what they have in the RAM into your HDD to free up some place. RAM works fast while HDD are not. This is where the slow things happen and makes games jitter/low fps/slow loading.

Not only RAM, GPU can affect your games too, well if your games has a minimum recommendation of 7600GT and you set the games on high graphics/high resolution, you'll see the same jitter/low fps games.

btw, you don't answer my question. What kind of games do you try to play ?

Tuning/changing the latency of RAM can be done from your mainboard BIOS. You need to read the mainboard manual first to know if there are any section about changing RAM latency which i doubt on a Mini-ATX board (i could be wrong though).
 

jawwadshaukat

Distinguished
Jun 15, 2008
20
0
18,510

All kinds, RPG,RTS,Racing..

U r indeed very helpful. Thanx

Well the main reason why I am worried is I am not sure whether my system is working perfect and free from any bottlenecking.
I have, as mentioned b4, 7600GT 256Mb GDDR3 AGP. I just want to make sure that I am getting the most out of it. But I somehow feel that something (mayb RAM..) might be slowing it.
I have a clean newly installed XP and when I start any game there are mere 18 processes (even no explorer) running in the background
taking approx. 50Mb memory usage.
So what do u think under these conditions, the (slow)Processor and (slow)RAM are fine for the gaming (take for exmple Colin DiRT) requirements and wont affect fps?

The mobo has some options in BIOS (which i dont understand) like:
DRAM Freq; DRAM CAS# latency; DRAM Bank Interleave; Trp; Tras; Trcd; Trfc; Trrd; Trtp; Twtr; Twr; DRAM Command Rate; DRAM Multiple Page Mode; DRAM Voltage; Flexibility Opt;
 

slicessoul

Distinguished
Apr 18, 2006
771
0
18,980
Your RAM and GPU are the minimum requirements for CMR Dirt. Your Processor are 500MHz short. I know it's not a lot/big deal, but it's affecting the performance.
It's not RAM who bottlenecked the PC, but it's the processor.

CAS latency is to change the latency of RAM, generally if you tighten the latency, you need to bump up the voltage (DRAM voltage). Be very carefull to change their values other than their default values, some negative impact not only instability will occur such loosing data or unusable RAM module.
 

jawwadshaukat

Distinguished
Jun 15, 2008
20
0
18,510
Well what made me so much hopeful from my system is what I watched here : http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Nvidiazz
I can play DiRT fine on low settings (2xAA). The GPU is above minimum since its far better than 6800, also 1Gb RAM in XP is enough as game takes about 350Mb RAM and I have about 600Mb[1Gb-(350Mb+50Mb)] free RAM left when game is running. So according to what I understood from u, the Processor would be utilized only on 400Mb memory, making it good enough to handle the game, ain't that?
So in my case RAM is enough, GPU is less but not least, Processor enough for 400Mb usage so does this make LOW best for me?
So for me, increasing RAM to 2Gb or a faster 1Gb will be of no use ? And I should overclock the Processor for better performance.
 

jawwadshaukat

Distinguished
Jun 15, 2008
20
0
18,510
Is there any software to check how my system should ideally perform, like setting the components (CPU,GPU,RAM,Mobo) and then virtually get an ideal benchmark for that system and then compare it with an actual benchmark run on my system?