Azrael1981

I have an asus M4N82 deluxe and am trying to purchase RAM for it. It is an am2/am2+ board but im running the Phenom II x4 955 am3 in it. The board specs say it accepts 800mhz 1066, and 1200 ( O.C. mode). What is this OC mode? Does it just mean I can run 1200mhz ram in this board? Because I was going to add 8 gigs of 800 instead of the 4 gigs 1066. But if I could run the 1200 that would be sweet....

The Duke

RAM is sold with default settings. with various timing and voltage changes it can run at higher speeds.
With that said and the 800/1066/1200 you refered to.
The default MB RAM speed for a DC CPU is DDR2 800, where as the default for a tri or quad Phenom is 1066.
The DDR2 1200 is a setting that may be used when the base ( or not overclocked) CPU bus speed is used with RAM that has a default DDR2 1200 speed.

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With that 955 you have, I believe it would be the Black Edition, you can increase the CPU multipliers to OC it and still maintain the DDR2 1200 speed if you so desire to OC your system.
The 1066 is more than adequate with consideration to the volume you chose for great performance.

I'd suggest some good DDR2 1066 over the 800 with a Phenom.

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Azrael1981

Ok, thank you for explaining that. I do plan on overclocking and The only I am still confused about is.. Is this a setting to overclock the DDR2 1066 to 1200mhz or will it actually allow DDR2 1200 ram modules.

The Duke

Some DDR2 1066 may run at the DDR2 1200 speed, but that will likely require increasing the RAM voltage (or vdimm) and even possibly changing the RAM's default timings.

The 1200 RAM may run 2.1-2.2v and use timings like 5-5-5-15 or 6-6-6-18
The first RAM timing which is "CAS" may have to be lowered from 5 to 6.
So, with a CAS6 or slower timing, you trade off raw speed for slower timings. This in not always the case though, its all dependent on the RAM where as some DDR2 1200 can run CAS5 timings, but not all DDR2 1066 will overclock to DDR2 1200 speeds with a CAS5 setting.

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scottath

As Duke said - it is overclocking the ram.

eg - my Crucial Ballitix rated at DDR2 800 i can run at DDR2 1300 but with about 2.3v compared to DDR2's defualt voltage of 1.8v

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Azrael1981

So I'm better of just going with about 4 gigs of 1066 dual channel and see what I can do to overclock that RAM by tweaking.

On this boards also it only allows 1 stick per DIMM of the DDR2 1066 because of CPU limitation. WHat is that all about?

scottath

Only 1 stick will physically fit in the DIMM - the dimm slot is the slot on the board - you should have 4 of them making you able to have 4 sticks in total

so go 4gb 1066 and see about overclocking it
be careful though - go too high/over the top with voltage and you can kill them

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Azrael1981

I worded it wrong. Here is what it actually says.

Memory Standard DDR2 1200(O.C.)/1066*/800/667

*Due to AMD CPU limitation, DDR2 1066 is supported by AM3/AM2+ CPU for one DIMM per channel only

scottath

after reading this:
http://www.overclock.net/amd-motherb...r-channel.html

seems your right - maybe get 4gb of ddr2 800 and overclock that to 1066mhz
seems to be like my board with 1066mhz Crucial ram had massive problems but my 800's overclocked are fine

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Azrael1981

Thats why I was thinking of using 4X2GB of the 800 instead of 2X2GB of the 1066. but I have heard that the AM3 cpu is pretty stable using the 1066.