RAM question: which way should I go?

Cliffs:

- AMD 64 3000+ on MSI K8N Neo2 Plat mobo (supports dual channel RAM)
- planning to overclock sometime in the future (combo is very capable of it)
- currently I have 512 megs of PC3200 DDR, Samsung (one stick)
- wanna upgrade to 1 gig
- budget is limited = no Corsair RAM for me :(


First question: can Samsung RAM take a lot of OC'ing? If yes, I can just get another stick of what I already have for a very good price. If no, see below:


These other brands are available at an affordable price atm:

- Kingston (not HyperX)
- Kingmax
- Infineon


I could sell my current RAM and buy two 512 meg sticks of one of the above for dual channel goodness. I heard good things about all of them, but I don't know how well they OC.


Second question: are any of the above brands good enough overclockers that I should switch now, or should I save up some money and buy cheap Samsung RAM for the time being?

If you are looking to overclock your system/ram you gotta have some good stuff. Right now, the TCCD is about the best you can get, but its been discontinued. Corsair XMS at the 2-2-2-5 latency uses samsung TCCD chips, but the valueram stuff wont do squat.
Answer to first question. No, No, No. All generic ram.
2nd question. No. If you want to overclock you gotta have quality ram. You want TCCD chips or if you can find it, BH-5 chips.

teehee i have bh5 chips supposedly and i'm not even really utilizing its potential. (no it's not up for grabs)

Hmm. Found this at a local store's price list:

"1024Mb 434Mhz HyperiX CL2,5 (2-2-2-6-1) Kit of 2 Kingston"


Those timings look promising, but I got a few concerns:

- can't find it on kingston's website (only a similar package, but with different timings)
- no chip type shown, gonna have to ask the store about it. I'm guessing good timings aren't worth much with low quality chips?
- can't run at 433 MHz (mobo is capped at 400): would it perform significantly worse than a similar kit that was planned for 400 MHz use by default?

Update: ended up buying another stick of Samsung RAM in hopes of high quality RAM getting cheaper by the time I'll need it.


Now, my old stick was running 400 MHz at 3-3-3-8, and could run 333 MHz at 2.5-3-3-7. The new one runs 400 MHz at 2.5-4-4-8 though, which is what I assume slows down the old stick to CAS 2.5, and consequently the whole system to 333 MHz. (all numbers are according to CPU-Z)

Should I

a) set the old stick's timings to 2.5-4-4-8
b) set the new stick's timings to 3-3-3-8
c) take the new stick back to the store and find something that runs at CAS 3 by default (this is an option for 3 days only (compatibility warranty) and is the default choice)

If I were you I would just try option a then benchmark the system and then do the same thing with option b and see whats better.

If I were you I would just try option a then benchmark the system and then do the same thing with option b and see whats better.
That's exactly what I tried to do, but changing any of the timing settings in BIOS renders the comp uncapable of booting up. The screen's black and it beeps for a second in 5 or so second intervals. I can't even get into BIOS to reset the settings. I have to take out the new stick, restore the settings and put the memory back to get th ecomp operational again. Wtf is up with that?

it's called "your memory can't do those timings"