DDR 266 vs. 333MHz question

[Cadaver]

In our never-ending quest for speed, I've been doing some overclocking, and I've run in to some issues. Please forgive me if my technical jargon is too simplistic...

First- system: Gigabyte GA-7VRXP motherboard, Athlon XP 2000+, Thermaltake Volcano 7 HSF, 512MB stick of generic PC2700 RAM, 128MB Radeon 8500.

Issue- I've got things running nice and stable at 144MHz FSB. CPU is still locked and running at 1.80GHz. I must run my RAM at 266MHz (2x DDR) mode w/ CL2 and at 2.7 volts to be stable at this bus speed. At this FSB, running the RAM in 333MHz (2.5x DDR) mode fails to boot or crashes soon after, even at CL2.5.

Question- which will give me better throughput and overall speed: 144MHz FSB plus RAM at 2x DDR (CL2), or a lower FSB so I can run the RAM at 2.5x DDR (333MHz mode) (CL2.5)? Or should I just cough up the $160 or whatever and buy 512MB of PC3000 RAM??

 

[Alex]

144fsb i reckon

 

[bassoprofundo]

Run it at the 144fsb, DDR266 CL2 mode. Scour the 'net for reviews on boards using DDR333, and you'll find that the difference between running the RAM at CL2.5 rather than CL2 all but negates the advantage of running the RAM at DDR333 specs vs. DDR266 specs. Plus, you're getting a faster cpu speed at the faster FSB.