Timings of ram? Well, it's basicaly (VERY BASICALY), how fast the ram respond the requests from ram controler.
2 T(CAS) - 2 T(RP) - 2 T(RCD) - 11 T(RAS)
Lower = better, of course. With one exception. nForce2 chips like the T(RAS) 11 more that 5, dunno why. Just the performance is better then
Yea, the DFI mobos are far better in terms of overclocking, less bios problems, etc. Most the NF7 mobos need modded Tictac bioses to get close to 230Mhz FSB, that should say you something
And when I learn that the modded bios also cured the impossibility of use multiplier 10 and 10.5 - I deleted NF7 from the list of the mobos I ever want
...also my friend mentioned that the voltage measurments are that way off the true voltages, that it is not even funny, so...
Maybe some things get fixed in later revisions, but I did not count on that. There is no person with NF7 and FSB over 270Mhz, while plenty of then I found on OCWorkbench forum (the forum is ugly, don't even bother to visit
...long live SPCR! Thumbs up, Ralphie!
)
The Ultra Infinity and the Lanparty? Both are same. I get the Lanparty, because of the gigabite network. These are same, ppls even using the latest Lanparty mobo bios (
http://www.dfi.com.tw/Upload/BIOS/N24LD505.zip ) into the Ultra Infinity - you just have to disable the gigabite network
(recommended bios, BTW! detect even mobile CPUs, witch all other mobos can only dream about...!)
...the lanparty price are mostly for the UV compoents. They make me almost vomit, but I hope they did not glow trough my solid steel case, othervise man, Im in trouble
A64 is not IMHO for gaming for at least year worth the price - there is no 64bit optimized game so far - and even they are, the speed differenced aren't good enought yet...
...but the integrated memory controler show it's power and the future is K8, no dubt about
Of course you WILL NEED nice memories for this
BH-5 rams are not sold anymore, af far as I know. I woul buy them for almost any price, but they are not...
BH-6 example is there:
http://www.mushkin.com/epages/Mushkin.s ... iew/991154
The CH-5 chips aren't that bad, I know one user that run then at 260Mhz, but it took 3.8V and active cooling - and he still not get to the nice low latency, what mean the bandwith...
And well, yea, chips is the basic to make a good ram, but not everything
It can be screwed up by bad PCB design, lousy wires and so on...
And since the chips are bellow the heatspreaders, glued to them, I recommend you first search for guy who is mad overclocker and have the ram you want to buy. I do this same way
You learn from him and see, what the ram is worth the money or not...
Mostly you can't get wrong with Winbond chips on ram, but... mostly
Identical ram set? If you are talking about the double channel (most companies scare you that you need EXACTLY same, best preselected from them chips - not true, any with same capacity and timings will do it, even from different vendors - i tried
) then pld read more my posts about how this IS important on the AMD too more cerefully
No, better get 2x 512 - you can't get doublechannel with 2x256 AND 512 dimms!!! In doublechannel you are restricted to TWO sticks to two sockets - use sockets 1 and 3 or 2 and 3 - nothing else, one remain free. That it is.
Don't go bellow 1Gby of ram. It make FarCry UNPLAYABLE!
For silence choose the Zalman passive cooler - no moving parts
However it heat up your case, so... There is the price
Depend what GFX card you are planing to run... I mean... the Ti4200 is todays, erm, ehm, a pretty weak one. Did you say something about gaming?
I moved to the watercooling and recommending you FX5700Ultra with the DDR3 chips - yea, no performance increase over the DDR2 I got, but man... the DDR2 - they are so overheating!
DDR3 running cold... Of course until you overvolt them and run them over 1Ghz
Mine do 970Mhz only, after I removed the stock aricooling thing
...and use watercooling for CPU/GPU