Memory/MOBO

[kirdog69]

How's everyone doing?

MOBO: Was, (ASUS M3A32-MVP DELUXE)
CPU: AMD 6400 Black
MEMORY: Corsair Dominator 4Gb (2x2Gb) DDR2 1600
PSU: Apevia Warlock ATX 750W
VIDEO CARD: HIS Radeon 4850 512Mb GDDR3
HD: WD VeociRaptor 150Gb
HD: WD Caviar SE16 640Gb
OD: Pioneer DVR-216DBK
OS: Windows XP Home

MOBO: My first board was DOA I sent it back and I have to find another MOBO cause there not ordering anymore, unless I want open box. What MOBO would you guys/gals recomend? I want to be able to run 2 video cards, sound card, and a TV tuner card. All on the MOBO. I was looking at this MOBO ( ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe). A problem with this MOBO is that with this OS ( Windows XP Home) you won't be able to use 1066 memory. Will it just caught down to 800? I plan on installing Vista Ultimate 64 in the near future, for a duel boot system and this will utilise 1066. In windows XP will it be easier to overclock my memory to 1066 cause its alredy 1066, or no? Or will it be easier to get 800 and overclock it? With me having a duel boot system will I have to change the momory in the bios each time I switch back and forth ( XP,Vista 64 )?

MEMORY: What kind of memory is easy to work with OC etc. In the (800/1066) DDR2 area? Shold I be looking for lower Cas Latency number or higher? Timing numbers should I be looking for lower numbers in the first 3 digits or higher, and the last number should I be looking for higher or lower?

Thanks for your guys/gals time!!!!!!!!! -j-

[DiiZzY]

I would go for a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H, stable motherboard with good onboard components. I don’t know if it’s good for OC as I don’t bother doing it myself, if you want an potentially unstable computer its up to you. As for memory speed it has nothing to do with the OS. I highly doubt you’ll notice any “real” difference between stock 800Mhz (PC6400) and anything above but oh well…
You probably want to have a look at compatibility in general as I highly doubt these Dominator sticks runs at 1.8V.
//Danne

[eric93se]

Danne, that board dosen’t have two gaming slots.

kirdog69, you might have the memory thing mixed up. XP home can’t handle more than ~3.5GB’s of ram, it will work fine it just won’t recognize more than the ~3.5Gigs, but 64bit vista or xp can handle as much ram as you can put in there. Its not usually an issue of speed unless the bios has issues booting with high Mhz ram. When buying ram you want the lower latency, for new systems getting 4-4-4-12 ram is preferred. And for an AMD based system, getting 800Mhz ram will still give plenty of OC"ing headroom.

The board you selected is fine, a less expensive model that is also dual x16 slots is the DFI LANPARTY DK 790FX-M2RS or the DFI LP DK 790FXB-M2RSH AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX

[DiiZzY]

Actually that’s wrong…
XP does handle more using PAE but it’s not recommended…
//Danne

[qwakrz]

Nope XP and Vista 32 are software limited to 4GB minus expansion card ram. Its only the server O/S’s that are not limited to 4GB when using PAE under 32bit

XP and Vista both support PAE but the feature that allows the O/S to use this to allow more than 4GB to be seen has been disabled by Microsoft to reduce driver compatibility problems. Full PAE extended memory support is only available using a server O/S like Server 2000, 2003 or 2008 and drivers that support PAE memory expansion.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

PAE is enabled in XP as it is needed to fully support the advanced CPU features such as the NX bit (non execute)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605

[DiiZzY]

Which still is more than roughly 3.3Gb
//Danne