poor performance with new ram OCZ 2-2-2-5

I just got some new ram, its the OCZ gold series pc 3200 2-2-2-5. I upgraded from one stick of value kingston. At first i had extreme problems just trying to get the ram to work, i tested it on my brothers computer and ran memtest, both sticks work fine. I have an msi k8n neo2 platinum, and was told it was extremely picky about ram. Well i finnally managed to get the sticks to work in my system, but Im noticing that my frame rates in games dropped a lot, and i also ran 3dmark 03. To my surprise, my score dropped from 12,000 (with the 512 value kingston) to 7,900 (with the new ram) Its running in dual channel, and i have it running at 2-3-3-6. (2-2-2-5 crashes as soon as i boot into windows, maybe my PSU, its a noname 420watt) But even with the 2-3-3-6 timings of dual channel memory my scores should be going up. I have a BFG 6800gt OC and an AMD-64 3500. any ideas?

 

fsb correctly set at 200mhz? There are a couple of AMD 64 cores with a FSB bug, anything greater then pc3200 wont run beyond that speed.

 

Yup its at 200mhz.

 

any more ideas? I just updated the bios, and i still cant boot with 2-2-2-5 timings, also, my performance is still far worse than my previous 512 value stick was. thanks for the reply

 

Not sure what the problem might be. However, you should try setting your tRAS (active to precharge delay) to 10 or 11. For some reason, AMD ( especially on nVidia) gets much higher bandwidth speeds when running at 2-2-2-10 or 2-2-2-11 instead of a tRAS of 5 or 6.

What speed does the RAM go to if you use SPD?

Double check your DIMM slots, too. Looks like that mobo only runs a DDR333 under certain DIMM conditions.
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=607

 

Ok i will try that, but on SPD it shows up as 2.5-3-3-7, i was curious about this, but read in a lot of forums that this its normal for this ram to boot up with those timings under SPD, Because its suppost to use 2.8v to run at its rated timings, and some motherboards dont support the 2.8

 

ok i tried the 2-2-2-10 1T timing and it actually made it without a BSOD for about 3 minutes. Then i bumped it down to 2T and it made it about 5 minutes =/. closer, but still not working. Thanks for the reply

 

How's the bandwidth at 2-3-3-10?

Only other thing I can think of is to up the voltage.

 

Well I uped to voltage to the max my motherboard will support (2.85) but it still shuts down.

 

Odd what do you get in sandras membench ??? And putting your weakest stick closest to the northbridge will help...

 

I ran Sandra and got 5980 (93% bandwith efficency) is that good?

 

When i ran 400 FSB at 2229 i got ~ 2900 but your running a 64bit chip that has way better mem managment.....your running 3 mem chips ?? did ya try runing the weak one closest to the chipset ??

 

oh no, im only using the 2 sticks of OCZ, I took my kingston out, I figured dual channel with good timings would be better than weak timings and single channel

 

How many sticks do you have ...and how many ram slots do you have ?? {edit} you have 4 right ??

 

I have 2 sticks (2x512) and there are 4 slots, Ive tried the ram in slots 3&4, and it didnt even work, so im using 1&2

 

Are you running one stick in one color slot and the other in the other color slot ?? I think in your case purple will be channel 1 and yellow? will be channel 2...

 

yes both are right next to each other, in different colored slots, the two different colors represent two different channels

 

Have you tryed running the 2 sticks in the 2 slots closest to the CPU ..if your not already.the mem controler is on the CPU in your case....
The best timings you can run are 2336 ?? Nothing but the ram has changed ?? So you whent from 512MB on one stick in single channel to 2 512MB sticks is dual channel with better timings ? ?? and now your benching slower in 3Dmark ?? that doesent make a bit of since http://forums.majorgeeks.com/images/smilies/confused.gif....

 

Yes, they are in the closet slots to the CPu, and yes it is slower with the dual channel and faster timings. Not only that, But my ram is suppost to run at 2-2-2-5, and it crashes as soon as i get into windows with those timings.

 

If I were you I'd try returning them and getting a Kingston matched pair. MSI does recommend Kingston in their motherboards.

 

Exactly what i was about to say...your mobo simply doesent like that ram from what i can tell....take a look here http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_trp_detail.php?UID=572

 

well thats a bummer. Well then I will probably return them for some kingstons, thanks for the help guys.

 

Ok well, One thing i never thought of was switching back to some older video card drivers, so i switched from 77.72 to 71.89 and my scores went way up, along with my FPS. Thanks for all of your guys' help. Now to upgrade my PSu so i can run these puppys at thier rated 2-2-2-5. thanks again.

 

If you will look in the test report that came with your board it list the types of ram it has been tested to work with. We tried OCZ ram in this board and had the same problems also some brands of ram are recomended to run in the last 2 slots instead of the first 2 slots. From what I've seen of this board it is very ticky about what ram will work properly with it. I know that my OCZ ram is good because it has been running for at least a year in my Asus board with no problems but wold not even boot at the correct timings on the neo 2 board.

 

Ya, iv come to accept the 2-3-3-6 timings for now, I just now that when i upgrade i will have 2-2-2-5 waiting for me =), next mobo for me is probably going to be the Asus SLi deluxe =)

 

I'd still reccommend testing at 2-3-3-10. I'm running an ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe board with 2-2-2-10-2T timings, and my bandwidth from the SiSoft Sandra test reports as 5700 MB/s Integer and 5650 MB/s Float (~90% efficiency). It was about 5-10% lower at 2-2-2-5.

Haven't tried 2-2-2-10-1T....