F2-8500CL5 1GBPK on MSI P45 Platinum

[Akv]

Hi, I have just bought four of this ram and they are very stable.

However I am not sure there is an increase in performance compared to my previous DDR2-8000 memory.

The Bios says "setting memory at 1067 hz" when starting, which seems ok to me.

Here two screenshots of CPU-Z, if someone can tell me wheteher this is all correct :

[Akv]

Sorry I was not precise enough.

It is four modules of F2-8500CL5D 1GB.

CPU is core duo E8400 on WinXP 32.

[Dumaine]

that is correct......the memory is running at 1068 MHz....CPUZ shows 534 x2 cuz its DDR2 memory. actually its running close to 1069 MHz

[Tradesman]

It is trying to run at 1068, but the timings being showed by CPU-Z are extremely loose, which is why you may not really be seeing any performance increase. You'll want to go into the BIOS and -manually- set your speed to 1066, Base Timings to 5-5-5-15, command rate to 2T and DRAM Voltage to 2.1, don't trust the auto settings.

If there are stability issues with these settings after you boot, you may need to raise the tRFC in 5 count increments till you get stable. Have seen these sticks go anywhere from 67-86.

[Akv]

Thank you for such a quick and competent answer.

I have set the base timings as you said, plus tfrc at 68, not trusting auto. There was an immediate increase in efficiency. I now perceive clearly that only the hard disks slow down my system, and once all data are in the ram it is lightning speed.

Now I am looking for how to adjust dram frequency in that bios. The only thing close that I see is a line called FSBRAM ratio, it offers several choices and not an entry field, the closest choice is 1333 1066 and it offers only 1068 as a frequency.

However it works fine now. Just trying to improve.

[Akv]

Oops sorry the smiley was unintended. It was in fact an FSB plus a :

But I don't have editing rights on my posts.

[Akv]

I finally set the FSB DRAM ratio manually to 1333 1066, it sets the frequency to 1067 (not 1068 as I wrote before).

The result in the OS is even better. For example I have a software that reads movies on my TV from my computer, and there are no perceptible delays in opening the movies. Generally speaking, everything works faster. No instability at all.

I will write a very positive comment for that ram on the website where I bought it.

[Dumaine]

my mistake for not noticing the timings, and ty tman for clearing that up.....akv .....you should be good to go

[Akv]

Thank you for your answers Dumaine. What is tman ? It's in the bios ?

[Dumaine]

noooooooooo Tman is Tradesman, the guy that mentioned to set the timings manually in post #4....He knows quite a bit about memory, timings, settings etc etc!! I myself am basically just a novice at this stuff, yet I try to help out where I can

[Akv]

Oh ok. Thank you to you and Tradesman anyway. It is great to receive help so quickly.

[Akv]

Hi again. I don't really have a stability or slowliness problem on this motherboard now. I'm just trying to understand better and make things perfect.

Does anyone know why this MSI P45 Platinum motherboard sets voltage at 1067 instead of 1066 ? Can that deteriorate performance ?

[Tradesman]

1067 /1066 is the frequency/speed your DRAM runs at, not your voltage. There are numerous base speeds for RAM available i.e. 667, 800, 900, 1066, 1100, 1200 and many mobo makers will set up predetermined default speeds based on various factors (CPU, FSB, DRAM, etc) which can vary from mobo to mobo and also depend on the BIOS version of the particular mobo.

In an earlier post you mentioned your hard drive slowing things down, you can improve those speeds some by clearing out unneeded files/programs i.e. uninstall programs you don't use, clean up old files, temp files, cache files, etc, then defrag your harddrive(s), ensure the write back cache is enabled on the drive(s), and possible increase the size of the virtual memory.

Also can clean up free up RAM by cleaning up the items in your startup, which load snippets of programs into memory at startup, many of which just basically take up RAM uselessly.