X2 3800 and 4 Dimms

[shaker718]

I currently have a 3500 newcastle proc running on my A8V deluxe with 4 sticks of ram. the ram is currently running at about 333mhz. I am, finally after all my hesitation, about to pull the trigger on an X2 3800 proc this evening and wanted to know if my ram would run at 400mhz (at 2t of course) again with the new processor, or is the speed of the ram being held back by my motherboard?

[superklye]

No, it's being held back by the faulty memory controller that every A64 had until, I believe, the San Diego revision came out. San Diego and Venice are both fixed so that 4 DIMMs will run at DDR400 at 2T (or 1T if all the RAM is single-sided).

The same memory controller fix is present in both the Toledo and Manchester cores for the X2s.

[shaker718]

thanks for the quick reply superklye! And a shopping I will go.

[superklye]

No problemo! Enjoy.

[ViN86]

X2 3800 is an awesome buy i might add

[john19055]

If you have all 4 dims full even with a A64 3800+X2 it will still default to 333mhz.

[superklye]

Originally Posted by john19055

If you have all 4 dims full even with a A64 3800+X2 it will still default to 333mhz.

So they got rid of the fixed memory controller on the Venice and San Diego, huh?

[superklye]

I also just found this at Anand:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...oc.aspx?i=2497

Meanwhile, AMD quietly introduced a handful of new memory dividers in the latest revisions of their Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 X2 processors. These new memory dividers allow for memory clock speeds above DDR400 to be enabled without overclocking the Hyper Transport bus. The beauty of these new memory dividers is that owners of faster-than-DDR400 memory can take advantage of the extra bandwidth offered by their modules, without overclocking their CPUs or the rest of their system.

And finally this:

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardwar...le.php/3524426

...two cores, and memory bandwidth remains equivalent to current a single core Athlon 64 processor. The Athlon 64 X2 processors also receive all of the benefits of the 90nm Venice/San Diego revisions, including SSE3, the use of mismatched DIMMs on a memory channel, using all four DIMM sockets at DDR400 speeds, and improved memory mapping and lower latencies.

[Superfly]

Originally Posted by john19055

If you have all 4 dims full even with a A64 3800+X2 it will still default to 333mhz.

no it wont, both my A64 rigs (venice cores) have been fine @ DDR400 2T.

fortunatly I have 2x1Gb now so I stopped worrying about it.

[shaker718]

Its on order! thanks for the help and the info.

[shaker718]

Originally Posted by Superfly

no it wont, both my A64 rigs (venice cores) have been fine @ DDR400 2T.

fortunatly I have 2x1Gb now so I stopped worrying about it.

Finally received the x2 proc in the mail ,installed it and Im impressed. its pretty snappy. sadly the ram defaults to 333mhz. I read something about the a8v needing single sided ram to run at 400mhz with all four banks filled and I guess I have double sided. the proc is running a lil warm so I might reinstall it on sunday and add a lil more as5 since I wont be using the pc till then, but as of right now Im very happy.

[shaker718]

Originally Posted by ViN86

X2 3800 is an awesome buy i might add

what temps are is your 3800 running at? I think mine is running a lil hotter than usual. Then again I just installed it today and the as5 hasnt cured yet... Im paranoid.