Completely confused on how memory ratios/dividers work for Conroes

sindows

Golden Member
Dec 11, 2005
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As I understand it, there are no such things as memory dividers on most Conroe motherboards. So to go faster, you need good ram but what about those of us who don't have $200+ ram? Say I have some old DDR2 553 ram. That means if I were to pair it up with a Core2Duo processor, I would have a 1:1 match between my cpu fsb and ram speed. What would I go if I wanted to overclock the cpu?

Is the only option to overclock the ram and go from there? Or can there be a non 1:1 ratio between the fsb and ram that I'm not aware of?
 

n7

Elite Member
Jan 4, 2004
21,281
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The majority of C2D mobos (all P965s) have 1:1 (DDR2-533) as the lowest option.

There are a few 975X mobos that have lower than 1:1, & the AsRock weirdo mobos have that also.

But really, you shouldn't be running lower than 1:1, unless you like crippling your performance somewhat.

With old DDR2-533 RAM, you likely won't get too far, unless the RAM happens to OC well itself.
 

Shimmishim

Elite Member
Feb 19, 2001
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what 975x mobo has less than 1:1 ratio?

aren't the ratios dependent on the cpu strap?

like a 400 chip has different ratios available than a 533 chip than a 800 chip than a 1066 chip...

i know right now that the new bios (whenever its released) from abit for the aw9d is goign to have the 1333 strap available with a 5:4 divider (underclock the ram), not to be confused with 4:5.