Earnman Posted July 16, 2007 Share Posted July 16, 2007 I recently swapped memory on my Asus P4P800-E Deluxe board from 2 512mb sticks of Kingston KVR400 (value ram) to 2 512mb sticks of Corsair XMS CMX512-3200C2 (v5.1). The BIOS is set to auto for memory (which is probably the root of my issue). The issue...Everest reports nearly identical performance from both brands of memory and it identifies the Corsair as CL3 when it should be CL2. In order to maximize performance of the Corsair memory, should I be manually setting the BIOS timings/volts/etc? If so, what is recommended? Is it typical of Corsair memory to require manual BIOS settings? If I decide to overclock the CPU...how will this affect the memory settings? Many thanks for any and all input and advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earnman Posted July 18, 2007 Author Share Posted July 18, 2007 No opinions yet eh? Well, after digging into this situation a bit, I've discovered a few things. First, i'm not a memory expert by any stretch of the imagination; second, this memory is tested to 2-3-3-6; and third, in one of the stickys I found 'testing parameters' for a different Asus board, but which I assume to be the settings I should use: SDRAM Bank cycle time (or tRAS): 6 SDRAM Bank Interleave: 4 SDRAM Row Precharge (tRP): 3 SDRAM RAS-to-CAS Delay (rRCD): 3 SDRAM CAS Latency: 2 So in theory I should just make my BIOS settings match those above. Problem is...my BIOS doesn't have quite the same descriptions so I'm a bit confused as to what goes where. Can anyone enlighten me? My BIOS entries and available choices: DRAM CAS# Latency (2, 2.5, 3) DRAM RAS# Precharge (4, 3, 2) DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay (4, 3, 2) DRAM Precharge Delay (8, 7, 6, 5) DRAM Burst Length (4, 8) Memory Acceleration Mode (auto, enabled) DRAM Idle Timer (auto, 64T, 16T, 8T, 0T, infinite) DRAM Refresh Rate (auto, 64 usec, 7.8 usec, 15.6 usec) Anyone wanna take a stab at this? Thanks in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earnman Posted July 19, 2007 Author Share Posted July 19, 2007 RAM GUY...can I get your input...please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted July 19, 2007 Corsair Employees Share Posted July 19, 2007 Please follow the link in my signature for the tested setting and set the Voltage to 2.75 Volts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earnman Posted July 19, 2007 Author Share Posted July 19, 2007 Thanks RAM GUY, but the info from your sig link is the very same info I quoted in my second post, which I obviously already have. The problem is...as previously stated...I don't know which of those settings correspond to what's in my BIOS. Can you help with some interpretation please? I'm not a memory expert and I don't understand the terms. These are the 'tested settings' you refer to: SDRAM Bank cycle time (or tRAS): 6 SDRAM Bank Interleave: 4 SDRAM Row Precharge (tRP): 3 SDRAM RAS-to-CAS Delay (rRCD): 3 SDRAM CAS Latency: 2 And these are the entries available in my BIOS: DRAM CAS# Latency (2, 2.5, 3) DRAM RAS# Precharge (4, 3, 2) DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay (4, 3, 2) DRAM Precharge Delay (8, 7, 6, 5) DRAM Burst Length (4, 8) Memory Acceleration Mode (auto, enabled) DRAM Idle Timer (auto, 64T, 16T, 8T, 0T, infinite) DRAM Refresh Rate (auto, 64 usec, 7.8 usec, 15.6 usec) What goes where? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted July 19, 2007 Corsair Employees Share Posted July 19, 2007 In Jumper Free set the memory Voltage to 2.75 Volts then set these settings: Performance Mode: Auto DRAM CAS# Latency (2) DRAM RAS# Precharge (3) DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay (3) DRAM Precharge Delay (6) DRAM Burst Length (Default or 4) Memory Acceleration Mode (auto) DRAM Idle Timer (auto) DRAM Refresh Rate (auto) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earnman Posted July 19, 2007 Author Share Posted July 19, 2007 Perfect! I'll try those tonight! THANKS!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted July 19, 2007 Corsair Employees Share Posted July 19, 2007 NP Please let me know how you make out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earnman Posted July 20, 2007 Author Share Posted July 20, 2007 I'm a little surprised and disappointed that there doesn't seem to be any difference between my 'cheap' ram on auto and the Corsair with custom settings. Using Everest Home edition, I ran a benchmark test on the 'cheap' ram, the Corsair set to auto, and the Corsair with custom settings and 2.75v. 'cheap', auto: read: 5310 write: 1864 latency: 114.8 Corsair, auto: read: 5276 write: 1863 latency: 115.0 Corsair, custom: read: 5267 write: 1921 latency: 115.6 Unless something else is causing these results, the performance of the XMS memory, according to Everest, is no different than the 'cheap' stuff. Unless...hmmmm...maybe what I thought was 'cheap' memory, might actually be as good as the Corsair! Any thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted July 20, 2007 Corsair Employees Share Posted July 20, 2007 Did you load setup defaults before you made the changes in the BIOS? And I would check that with http://www.memtest.org and see if there is any difference they also provide a memory benchmark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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