DDR Ram Speed

[SeTeS]

Just pieced together a new box w/ a FIC AU13 and an XP3200+.

I plugged in 1- 512m PC2700 and 1- 512m PC3200... During post, the system displays the ram speed as 166mhz.

Is this correct? I know that the speed will drop to match the slowest dimm.. I just want to make sure that bios is id'ing the ram correctly. What exacly is the relationship between this displayed mhz and the FSB speed?

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

Yes, that is correct

Normally the Ram and FSB is 1:1 by default.

Your CPU's FSB is 200MHz though.

Depending on what you do though, having 1GB of ram may be better than the fact that you aren't running the FSB at full potential.

 

[SeTeS]

I could have sworn that the xp3200+ has a 400mhz fsb... :/

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: SeTeS
I could have sworn that the xp3200+ has a 400mhz fsb... :/

This is why you should unplug the PC2700 from your system. The same system that just told you that PC2700 cannot run on a 400 Mhz bus.

Pc2100 = 133 Mhz (x 2 for Double data rate = 266)
Pc2700 = 166 Mhz (x 2 for Double data rate = 333)
Pc3200 = 200 Mhz (x 2 for Double data rate = 400)

 

[McCarthy]

Using the mix of applications in the way I use them running more ram (1 gig) slower is way ahead of running less ram (512) at CPU bus speed. Ideally? I'd throw out the slower ram and buy new. But since I don't have any benchmark programs I'm plenty happy with a quick and stable computer.....even if it could be a few points faster.

Depends on the mix of applications you run as to which way is better.

 

[SeTeS]

Regs.. that's the info I was lookin' for...

As far as the 1g of Pc2700 vs. 512m of Pc3200, I'll fiddle w/ that. I do mostly destkop stuff (programming, music, imaging, etc.) I'll probably just keep both sticks in there until I catch a sale on another pc3200 512.