DDR400 or DDR500

[The Borg]

I am looking for more memory for my AMD 3500+ (soon to be a X2 4800+).

My Mobo supports DDR400, but I see there is DDR500. What is the difference and would it be worth getting if I am overclocking? Running at 240MHz - 2.64GHz (stable on air)

 

[OBCT]

DDR-500 memory is rated to run at 250MHz. Likewise, DDR-400 is rated to run at 200MHz. Some people clock their DDR-400 at 210MHz to get a bit more out of it. With DDR-500, you can safely clock it up to 250MHz without worrying about blowing your memory. Make sure your motherboard can go that high first.

 

[shamans]

If....
1) You already have existing DDR memory (with enough capacity) - which you probably do.
2) And your motherboard can run memory at lower ratios than 1:1 (ie. fsb:memory)

Then...
No, you don't need new memory to be able to overclock since you can "downclock" your old memory.

Oh, and memory isn't a big factor in performance increases at all. Save your money for next time.

 

[The Borg]

Well, I am already running the CPU clock at 240 x 11. I did drop the ratio for the memory - running at 188.8 to get it stable.

I want to move the 2 x 512 meg to the board that will have the old 3500+ and then I need new memory for the x2 4800+. I plan to get 2 x 1024 or 4 x 1024.

So the DDR500 is like the old PC66, PC100 and PC133 SDRAM?

 

[myocardia]

If you mean that you could use 133 Mhz SDRAM with a processor and a motherboard that only had a 100 Mhz fsb, then use the "spare" 33 Mhz to overclock with, yes. The new RAM and motherboards work identically.