Sam440ep-flex RAM

Hi,
I just got one of the 440ep-flex boards from Acube. But I am a bit confused about the type of RAM modules they use.

I told my local hardware dealer that I need DDR1 RAM for at least 266MHz with 100 pins, but he could only present my DDR1 RAM with a single whole and 168 pins.

He wanted to order it, but we didn't find out which type of RAM I need. Is it so rare?

You should have bought memory from ACube. It's tried and tested, and guaranteed to work with the board. Your local PC dealer will probably not help you.

And as said on the Sam440 Flex pages on ACube store:
Quote:

You haave bough the memory with your Sam, because they use ancient and rare modules to find currently, for example the Radeon 9250 PCI there aren't much places to find it.
Although the memory is a little more expensive that the current modules for x86 boards, the memory from Acube is tested the compatibility by them.
In this case is a risk very big.

@phx

As suggested by Afxgroup, try to get the one from ACube. This RAM is declared to be clockable up to 400MHz. With Hyperbench it is possible to overclock DDR speed to 333 MHz (400MHz will leave you some OC reserve). Even if CPU clock speed will stay at same level, the gain will be still noticeable.

In my case, on SAM440ep flex 800 it is possible to do:
CPU/FSB/RAM/PCIbridge(async): 800/133/266/133 MHz -> 800/160/320/80 MHz
With new settings Blender is something about 5% faster.

Unfortunately, even faster mode: 833/166/333/87 MHz is merely stable and only allows to boot AmigaOS (hangs up just after any heavy app to be launched…). Really wish to have a 5% voltage mod for Sam ;)

PS. Wish to be able to mess with DDR RAM latency timers too. PPC440ep CPU is able to set CL to 2, with current default value to be (as I believe) 2.5. Some more % speed up to get…
PS2. IF you still prefer to get RAM via your local reseller – you need to ask for “printer DDR RAM”.

Thanks for the replies.
Yes, I should have ordered the RAM together with the board from Acube, but I didn't realize that it was so special. :(

I wonder why they used these modules. Is it a requirement of the 440 CPU? Seems stupid, to increase the price dramatically with special DDR-100 printer RAM.

@phx

Quote:
You know, we Amigans like to be special. We design boards around rare and outrageously expensive CPUs, put in coprocessors no one is going to really use... Standard components? Booooooring! Being different and having "that something extra" is simply part of our identity.

It's a requirement of the 440ep SoC, it has a 32 bits wide DDR bus, while "standard" DDR modules have a 64 bits bus.

Thanks mx3 for your explanation, I though that it was to control the memory sale and as only Acube seller.