What do you pick - E21xx OR E7200 OR Others, and what RAM?

[Wai_Wai]

What do you pick - E21xx OR E7200 OR Others, and what RAM?

I'm a budget overclocker. I'm also a price/performance geek.

My current pick is E21xx which is very cheap and can overclock to 3.0Ghz easily with stock cooler. I'm also interested in the new E7200 but it's 100% expensive at my local stores (I don't buy online!).

My choice of the coming motherboard is Foxconn P35A-S.

1. What's the difference between E21xx and E7200?

As far as I know, the only differences are cache size and clock multiplier. Anything else?

2. Normally speaking, how far can E7200 go on stock cooling? How good is the overclockabilty of E7200?

I plan to use its stock cooler only. I don't plan to spend extra bucks on aftermarket coolers unless it's proved to be worth it, price/performance-wise.

3. How much RAM should I get? My choices:

3GB: 1GB + 1GB + 1GB

3GB: 2GB + 1GB

4GB: 2GB + 2GB

Does it hurt if I mix different RAM brand, or different size/timings of RAM?

I'm using Windows XP Pro.

I need to receive a lot of streaming data (10+). I may do occasional video & audio editing/recording. I don't often play games.

DDR2 should be obsolete in 1-2 years. I believe I have to dump DDR2 when I upgrade after 3 years or so. So I don't think it's worth buying too much RAM even it's cheap.

Dual channel shouldn't be a concern. Memory seems not to be the bottleneck. Hardly any application needs so much bandwidth.

What do you think?

[puntoMX]

The biggest difference between the 2xxx and the 7xxx series is the die-shrink from 65 to 45nm, SSE 4.1, 1 vs. 3MB cache, new core design thus optimized, lower power consumption, higher speed and some more minor points.

With the stock cooler you can go as high as 3.0GHz without letting it break out in sweat. But, since you are a budget OCer I would get a better cooler and there are some nice ones around 30USD to get close to 4GHz on the E7200.

For the price I would get 2x 2GB 800/1066 1.8v, the same type and in dual channel mode. Your last statements are untrue, although they don´t make a big difference but they do have influence on stability and performance. Your OS will not “see” the complete 4GB but the price of 3x 1GB and loosing 128bit bus (it will be 64bit now) would make no sense in my eyes…

[Wai_Wai]

With the stock cooler you can go as high as 3.0GHz without letting it break out in sweat. But, since you are a budget OCer I would get a better cooler and there are some nice ones around 30USD to get close to 4GHz on the E7200.

I know little about aftermarket coolers. AFAIK aftermarket coolers usually help to squeeze small bits of performance only (200mhz or so). But from what you say, an aftermarket cooler can help boosting 1Ghz further. 1Ghz for US$30 is reasonable.

What about buying aftermarket coolers which cost ~US$10? Is it okay? How far can it help?

For the price I would get 2x 2GB 800/1066 1.8v, the same type and in dual channel mode. Your last statements are untrue, although they don´t make a big difference but they do have influence on stability and performance. Your OS will not “see” the complete 4GB but the price of 3x 1GB and loosing 128bit bus (it will be 64bit now) would make no sense in my eyes…

I don't know dual-channel will have influence on stability.

Performance-wise: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/PARALL...NG,1705-11.html

The result is so close that it's within the margin of error. So it seems to prove that while dual-channel apparently sounds so great, it's actually not. Also those tests usually stress the tester so much to draw a difference on the chart.

For normal usage (eg converting a normal DVD5 into another format), I doubt if I can feel the difference.

Apart from dual-channel, what problems do I face if I mix and match different RAMs (in size/timings/brand)?

One question:

Is single or double-sided RAM still a concern in today's world? If so, how can I know if it's single/double-sided and which one should I get?

Edited July 22, 2008 by Wai_Wai

[CoffeeFiend]

I know little about aftermarket coolers. AFAIK aftermarket coolers usually help to squeeze small bits of performance only (200mhz or so). But from what you say, an aftermarket cooler can help boosting 1Ghz further. 1Ghz for US$30 is reasonable.

A good cooler will let you OC more. I'm using the stock HSF on my old E2160, and I got it up to 3.4 stable (a 85% OC), but if I wanted to go past that, I'd have to raise the voltage, and I would absolutely need a better HSF (this one is barely adequate).

What about buying aftermarket coolers which cost ~US$10? Is it okay?

Those are likely worse than the stock HSF.

Performance-wise: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/PARALL...NG,1705-11.html

The result is so close that it's within the margin of error. So it seems to prove that while dual-channel apparently sounds so great, it's actually not.

Again, puntoMX is right (he always is!) The benchmarks you linked to are 3D/video card bound, not memory bandwidth bound. And even a 100% faster memory access wouldn't give anywhere near 100% faster results on most benches (there's still lots of other bottlenecks -- disk, cpu, various buses, etc). So of course there's like no difference there. And they only used one chipset (some gain more from it than others, like the old i865/i875 chipsets where you gained ~50%). It doesn't double the overall speed (there's also other potential bottlenecks, like the FSB), but it's a nice gain for sure. If you don't run in dual channel mode, then you create an extra bottleneck in your system (at the memory controller) where the CPU fetches its next instructions & data.

what problems do I face if I mix and match different RAMs (in size/timings/brand)?

In most cases, it'll run at the speed of the slowest. In some cases, it just plain doesn't work.

[puntoMX]

One question:

Is single or double-sided RAM still a concern in today's world? If so, how can I know if it's single/double-sided and which one should I get?

No problem in today´s world .