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Currently have an AMDXP2000 with PC2100... do I need new RAM if i upgrade CPU?

H

Hammyton

Senior member
Is there any way to find out if I need faster/new RAM if i upgrade my CPU?

Oops sorry to include that i have a AOpen AK77-600N Socket A (Socket 462) VIA KT600 ATX AMD Motherboard.
 
You shouldn't need too. The only real reason would be if you MB supports faster RAM, or you're looking at Overclocking.

 
I always thought that a faster CPU would use a faster FSB which means I would need faster RAM? Am I wrong with this assumption?
 
Since you wrote "if I need to buy like PC2700", I will assume you currently have only PC2100.

A newer Athlon XP will have a higher FSB. Best performacne comes from a synchronous (same speed) memory bus. Therefore, if you were to get any CPU with 166MHz FSB, you could set your motherboard to run the memory at -33 mode, asynchronous mode. Going to async mode alone incurrs a performance penalty, and further penalty for lowering the memory bus. How much I don't remember but I'd guesstimate around 6%, less on some things but certainly more on anything memory-bottlenecked.

If you were to get more memory, go for PC3200, it is backwards compatible if you only needed PC2700 (DDR333) speed for the CPU, BUT since your motherboard supports DDR400 FSB, a CPU that exploits that would be the best performance choice. I don't think your board supports -66MHz memory bus though so you would then need to abandon the old memory.

If your board has multiplier adjustment options, you might consider a mobile barton. Since they're unlocked, you can just set whatever multiplier you want, if you wanted to reuse that memory, or raise the FSB if you wanted the higher performance. In such a scenario if your board doesn't allow choosing multipliers over 12.5X (or ignores the choice and gives you (choice minus 8) then you may need do a wire-mod to jump the multiplier up to 14X (as the default startup multiplier on a barton mobile is 6X).

I could be wrong about your board supporting -33 async memory mode, you should be able to see what is available in your bios' settings menu.
 
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