A good tech question....

[mYth]

Building a system from older components for a buddy......should the CPU FSB and memory MHz match or can they be differential i.e. processor 333/mem 400.....also checked the board BIOS and it says it can support 400Mhz, but it uses presets for the processor speed. There's a manual mode, but it's a style I'm unfimilar with i.e. 13/133 and so on......any help in this realm would be appreciated!

In the processor realm, he wanted either the AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 333 or 400 MHz, or the 3200+ Barton core @ 400 MHz, so ideas or suggestions? (Read something about Athlon MP @ 2.25 GHz and it would work on this board, but the drawback was 266 MHZ FSB?????)

He also wanted the best vid card he could fit into the system.....GeForce 6600 or 6800. I would like ur opinion on them and weither 128 Mb vs. 256 Mb is the answer.....


Thanx!

 

[slick]

www.extremeoverclocking.com ......best PC forums IMO

You'll get a lot more help than here.

 

[DeathCorpse]

Yes you can get the ram to work with it. but you will have to oc the proc to run the ram at its full speed. and the 400mhz setting in the bios doest determine the ram speed but at what ratio it runs in. 400mhz in the bios means your ram will run in a 1:1 ratio with the cpu. which is what you want. you will have to up the fsb so that it will run the ram at its rated speed. this will do 2 things. 1. it will increase the cpu clock speed, and 2. it will increase your fsb. both good. just do some research on the proc you are going to buy on some of the tech sites to see if it can oc to what you need. as for the video card. first make sure you know what kind of graphics slot the mobo has
]ie is it agp 4x or 8x, or pci express. it would suck to buy a pic-x card only to find out that you have an agp slot.

 

[mYth]

So to sum it up if the processor has a FSB of 400 MHz, the mem should have a clock freq of 400 MHz too right?

Vid card issue resolved....

 

[Hypnos]

^^^^^^^^^ All that shit!!!!!! THAT is why I'm not building my own computer. RRROGER!

 

[mYth]

^^^^^^^^^ All that shit!!!!!! THAT is why I'm not building my own computer. RRROGER!

I'm more of a software troubleshooter......i'm decent in the hardware realm, but let's face it, it ain't easy

Also, I'm not lookin to o/c the CPU, just to get it right so it runs smooth and quick (for his needs!)

CPU's: AMD Athlon 3000+ XP (333 Mhx FSB) or the 3200+ Barton Core (400 MHz FSB)

Mem: Either that would work with the CPU (which is the confusing part!!!)

 

[imported_SuXoR]

Asynchronous speeds between processor and memory are not good. For example a cpu running 333 fsb coupled with pc3200 (400 mhz) with the ram running at 400 mhz will yield lower performance than the cpu and memory both running at 333 mhz.

Obviously, if the cpu and memory can run at 400, then by all means run them both at 400. Just don't mix speeds.

I would go for the barton. It's a faster cpu with more cache.

Af far as your bios, it sounds like the format in manual mode is multiplier/fsb. So if you chose 13/333 it would result in 13*166(remember its ddr)=2158 mhz.

One note though, most processors do not allow you to change the multiplier. In order to overclock on multiplier locked cpus you only have the option of cranking up the fsb. You can get into trouble there though because the following issues arise:

higher fsb means higher ram speed - and usually the ram latency must be turned down in order to accomodate the higher mhz

your agp bus and pci bus get their speed by dividing the fsb - for example , with 133 fsb your agp will be fsb/1 resulting in 133 mhz. Your pci bus runs at fsb/5 resulting in 33 mhz.

If you motherboard does not allow you to lock the pci and agp bus speeds, when you use unusual fsb speeds (unusual means not divisible by 33) you have the potential to corrupt your hard drive (on board ide controllers run on the pci bus) and cause instability with your video card, sound card, usb ports, etc.

 

[mYth]

SuXoR......you are the fuking man! I wasn't thinking about the async. transmission! Damn it! RAWR! I pulled the tech manual and it says it can only support a 333 MHz FSB on the board, so that's what he gets! Thanx ppl for all your hard thinkin!