P35C-DS3R and DDR3 Anyone?

[pobx]

[VorLonUK]

Re: P35C-DS3R and DDR3 Anyone?

I've found that the board whilst doing both DDR2 & DDR3 does neither spectacularly, which is often the case on anything hybrid.

I've spent a lot of time getting my DDR3 to run at 1333Mhz or above and whilst I could see zero memtest errors, Vista which uses ASLR would find a less than perfect memory range.
After trawling both the OCZ and Corsair forums, it seems that Some boards (not neccessarily hybrid) have trouble with DDR3 running above 1200Mhz.

In the end I settled for running my DDR3-1333Mhz 4GB kit of OCZ reapers at 1200Mhz. I've had rock solid stability with this and are satisfied knowing this is often the norm especially when reffering back to the research i have done.

Personally though I don't think DDR3 is better than DDR2 on this board and I'd say you'd have more flexibility using higher rated DDR2 modules (speed wise) than opting for the DDR3 route - and of course save money.
In fact for backup or another build (and because the price was so good) I bought a 4GB kit of the 1066Mhz DDR2 Reapers.

If you search the Memory manufacturers forums you'll find that only a select make/model amount of boards will run the really highly rated DDR3 ie 1600, 1800, 2000Mhz at their advertised speeds. For many, getting their boards to run at 1333Mhz even with a 2000Mhz product can be a feat.

[pobx]

Re: P35C-DS3R and DDR3 Anyone?

Thanks for the quick reply.
Seems like I'll save the cash and get a couple of 2gb pc8500s

I'm not really mad on overclocking (constantly battling in my head to get a quietish, but powerful system). So I'm not looking for crazy DHX's with fans on the memory :-)

In that case would Corsair or OCZ 1066mhz Cas5 sticks be ok?
Basically I'm looking to juice up my system to as fast as it will go using the fastest "standard" parts I can. E.g. un-cooled un-OC'd memory/cpu etc.


....just found out after upgrading BIOS and checking settings that my SATA is running in IDE mode not AHCI...DOH!
:-)

[pobx]

Re: P35C-DS3R and DDR3 Anyone?

Update
Got the ocz 4gb 8500 reapers HPC 2x2gb
running nicely at 5-5-5-18/2.1v

[VorLonUK]

Re: P35C-DS3R and DDR3 Anyone?

Update
Got the ocz 4gb 8500 reapers HPC 2x2gb
running nicely at 5-5-5-18/2.1v

Excellent, That's the kit i bought for backup and I see that kit is on very special offer by one supplier in the UK again.

[pobx]

[VorLonUK]

Re: P35C-DS3R and DDR3 Anyone?

Had to manually set the cpu clock and multiplier too as it sneaked it down to 6x to start with which had my 2.33ghz cpu running at 2.0ghz !!

Did you read that in windows? , ie with Cpu-z?If so that could indicate you have EIST enabled in the bios.

Additional settings for stability (MIT section)

1) Performance Enhance = Standard
2) tRFC (Refresh To Act Delay) = 56

If you have no memtest errors and windows boots fine, you could if you want to push the memory and northbridge a bit harder to achieve greater throughput by decrementing tRD.
Although tRD massively affects memory performance, there is a trade off to stability. Finding the threshold takes some experimenting and can cause windows to lock.
The windows program MemSet, along with the Everest memory benchmark suite allows you to see performance gains "on the fly" - or if you go to far you'll lock the system up.

[pobx]

Re: P35C-DS3R and DDR3 Anyone?

Yeah it was in windows with CPU-Z (or everest...I forget which)
I'm pretty sure it was after I'd had a hang and then reset the bios to fail-safe defaults

I have that cruise-control setting disabled, don't remember seeing a speedstep setting explicitly, is there one? (not useful doing this from my work PC when I can't check my home one where all the settings are hehe)

[VorLonUK]

Re: P35C-DS3R and DDR3 Anyone?

don't remember seeing a speedstep setting explicitly, is there one?

Yes,

under Advanced Bios Features (obviously your CPU needs to support the EIST option)