http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?in... http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?in... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...

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"My FSB:DRAM thing is 3:5" The "FSB:DRAM thing" should be 1:1, not 3:5. In other words, you don't need to overclock your RAM, you need to UNDERclock it! I think a S754 A64 system would be much better idea than upgrading the CPU in your current system, but you have to realize that it *may* trigger a whole slew of upgrades. I don't know that it would fit in your Compaq case, so you may have to get a new case, PSU, & probably RAM too (you should have PC3200 for an A64). Also, if your WinXP software is from Compaq, it won't work after the board swap. You'd need a *real* copy of XP. Don't jump the gun...think it thru before buying anything. Here's a cheap nForce3 250Gb board though...lol http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ... FLATURIN - Hand-to-mouth goodness. It's good!

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Couldnt he overclock his RAM to 200Mhz? This would run in a 2:1 ratio, which is ideal. I could be wrong though, Im new to this overclocking thing. Take it easy on me please :p

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"This would run in a 2:1 ratio, which is ideal. I could be wrong though, Im new to this overclocking thing." It has nothing to do with overclocking. On an Intel system, 1:1 ratio will give the best performance. And that ratio is based on actual bus speeds, not the therorectical QDR & DDR numbers. 2:1 ratio would mean the RAM would only run 1/2 as fast as the CPU. How would that be ideal? FLATURIN - Hand-to-mouth goodness. It's good!

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"People are confused (misinformed) as to what ratio is optimal for system performance. When looking at the bandwidth in terms of MB/s, your memory needs to be operating 2 times as fast as the CPU's FSB in order to match the CPU's L2 bandwidth. If you want to calculate your CPU’s or memory’s bandwidth you simply multiply the actual frequency by .016. This will give you the maximum theoretical bandwidth in GB/s. For Example: DDR2-800 has an actual speed of 400Mhz. 400Mhz x .016 = 6.4GB/s maximum bandwidth. So, for optimal settings a CPU with a FSB of 266.66Mhz would want memory running at 533Mhz (DDR2-1066). However, this is highly unlikely that you will have memory that can run in a 2:1 ratio with your FSB. A 1:1 ratio is more often the target ratio as it is easier to reach with most memory." http://www.overclock.net/intel-cpus... Just what I have read.

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Hmm, or perhaps thats just for C2D CPUs. Meh, I've confused myself lol. Just go with what jam said.

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You need to understand the theory & the mathematics behind bus speeds & bandwidth. There are theoretical bus speeds & there are actual bus speeds. Intel "quad-pumps" the FSB, so in the case of firedragom's Celeron, the theoretical bus speed is 400MHz, but the actual clock setting is 100MHz. RAM is "double pumped", so in the case of his PC2700 RAM (aka DDR333), the theoretical bus speed is 333MHz, but the actual clock setting is 166MHz. You also need to know that bandwidth is calculated by multiplying the theoretical bus speed by 8. So, in the case of his CPU, 400MHz x 8 = 3200MB/sec bandwidth. In the case of his RAM, 333MHz x 8 = 2667MB/sec. Obviously both the bandwidths & bus speeds are out of whack...for best performance, they should be equal (1:1 ratio). If the theoretical RAM bus speed was increased to 400MHz (DDR400/PC3200), the RAM bandwidth would increase to 3200MB/sec to match the CPU (1:1 ratio), but the actual bus speeds would be at 1:2 ratio, which is less than idea. Enter "Dual Channel Mode".... If you take two sticks of RAM & run them at the same actual bus speed as the CPU (100MHz in this case), then combine their bandwidths, you will have the correct 1:1 ratio. If that's confusing, maybe this will help: CPU = 400MHz (100MHz actual) x 8 = 3200MB/sec RAM = 200MHz (100MHz actual) x 8 = 1600MB/sec 1600MB/sec x 2 (dual channel) = 3200MB/sec. Both the bus speeds & bandwidths are at 1:1 ratio, & all is well with the world. FLATURIN - Hand-to-mouth goodness. It's good!

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CPU 100MHz bus (400 QDR) RAM 166MHz (333 DDR) ok so if the RAM was put to 200MHz: CPU 100MHz bus (400 QDR) RAM 200MHz (400 DDR) So if bandwidth is theoretical by 8: CPU 400MHz x8 = 3200 RAM 400MHz x8 = 3200 This would make the bandwith 1:1 but speed 2:1 correct? So if you want 1:1 in speed he would have to underclock the RAM to 100MHz: CPU 100MHz bus (400 QDR) RAM 100MHz (200 DDR) Now the bandwidth AND speed are both 1:1 right? So is that what you ideally want? Speed and bandwidth both 1:1? This makes sense to me but then that article I provided a link to calculates FSB bandwidth differently.(they go by 16 not 8) Could you explain? Sorry if this is getting offtopic of the original post :-/

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"This would make the bandwith 1:1 but speed 2:1 correct?" No, the speed would be 1:2. "Now the bandwidth AND speed are both 1:1 right?" No, the speed would be 1:1, but the bandwidth is 2:1. "So is that what you ideally want? Speed and bandwidth both 1:1?" Yes. But to do it, you'd need a board that supports running the RAM in dual channel mode. Read the last portion of response 13 again. "This makes sense to me but then that article I provided a link to calculates FSB bandwidth differently.(they go by 16 not 8) Could you explain?" Actually, they used 0.016, not 16, plus they are using actual speed to make their calculations while I'm using theoretical speeds. The answer's the same, we're just approaching it differently. Also, they calculate bandwidth in GB/sec. I'm using MB/sec because I think it's easier to understand. 3200MB/sec = 3.2GB/sec Why do you think PC3200 RAM is called PC3200? Because it's designed to handle 3200MB/sec at 200MHz (DDR400). FLATURIN - Hand-to-mouth goodness. It's good!

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WOW gone for a few days and this turned out to be a pretty detailed discussion. I understand computer stuff pretty well, but this is entirely new stuff to me. I'm gonna read up on this stuff to better understand it. There IS more to overclocking and underclocking stuff than I realized. Anyway well forget the AMD thing and stuff, it might be a faster running processor, but your right, it wouldn't fit my Compaq case, and I don't currently have the resources to purchase a new case, PSU, and real Windows XP, so I will just settle for the Intel P4. I figure later on down the line I will purchase maybe a gig of pc3200 and that will pretty much max out my board. That will do me for the current things I use my computer for, besides school stuff, I do some light gaming. Anyway, thanks for all the responses and things guys. I may need some more help with probably I guess OVERclocking my pc2700 RAM once I get the P4, so I will post up later probably. Thanks again guys.

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Hi jam. Thanks for clarifying this, this is exactly what I have been wondering about and finally found someone to confirm on the 1:2 fsb:dram speed issue, because everyone is just simply throwing around this 1:1 ideal claim without context. One question though... my understanding was it's ideal to match the data throughput 1:1, hence we have 1:2 clock ratio for quad-pumped cpu and dual-pumped memory. But why do clock speeds have to be 1:1? What's the problem of running memory asynchronously? If I install pairs of memory to enable dual channel and lower the speed to 1:1, isn't it like not improving anything (other than less heat perhaps)? Also, one of my laptops has dual channel memories installed, but in cpu-z I still see 1:2 ratio in clock speed. Does that mean that my memory is running faster than it needs to and bottlenecked by the cpu/fsb?

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