overclocking with 1024mb ram experiences?
 

After spending 45 days at the customs office, my Abit IS7 finally arrived.

It's a feaure-rich board and Sata raid performance is really astonishing, but it barely overclocks with 1024mb ddr400 installed. Even at 4/5 divider, it wont go stable above 220fsb. Running 200 sync is no prob; it's not the ram holding me back. The two apacer sticks had no trouble doing 220 sync at 2.6v in my asus 865G.

I've got the same problem with only one 512mb stick installed, but when i pop in a 256mb bh-5 module, it primes happely at 265fsb 5/4 at stock vcore!

Is this a IS7 <> Apacer conflict, or does the IS7 really dislike +256mb ram for overclocking?

What should I do? Run a mad overclocking 2.6C at stock with 1024mb ram, or sell them and replace it with 2*256mb ddr500 and run it at 3.4Ghz 1/1(260fsb)?

Depends, what you doing with it ?

This P4 is mainly a movie/gaming rig.

It has just spent the night priming at 260fsb with 256mb installed. With 512mb apacer it wont even pass 220fsb. :/

Maybe i should find someone with another brand 512mb sticks to swap.

try 2 * 256, if that works, you might as well stay with 512 total.
more won't net you a great deal of difference.

with new games?

that can be contested

nah, HL2 beta even runs smooth on 512
as does halo.
etc etc etc.
Good part is you can always add later.

Well, I'm currently testing with only one stick 512mb apacer (i've lent my other one to a friend while his is being RMA'ed) and i've come to an odd conclusion.

While the system isn't stable with relax memtimings above 220fsb (cas 2.5, 8-4-4), it IS perfectly stable at 255fsb with more aggresive memtimings (cas 2 6-3-3). I hope it remains the same when i pop that other 512mb stick back in. :)

By the way, the performance of 2 S-ATA Seagate 7200.7 drives in raid 0 on the ICH5-R southbridge is simply amazing... I get an average of 130mb/s (!!!!!) while reading/writing the raid array. My trusty ol' Seagate cuda V hoovers around 35mbps, and my faster Maxtor 8mb cache manages to poor out a decent 40+mbps, but that's even not close to 130mbs. :)

Cuda's still are the only drives with a dedicated SATA I/O system.

lets hope your system keeps up with the other stick.