memory standard?

[valo123]

Is the memory standard the only type of memory a mobo will accept? I have 4 gigs of 800mhz ram and on a few of the motherboards I'm looking at the memory standard is ddr2 1066

 

[nevbie]

DDR/DDR2 difference is important, they are incompatible (if you have other type and mobo supports other).
If you have DDR2 memory and mobo supports DDR2 memory, then they will typically work. Of course there *can* be various problems (as with everything).

For me it seems that you have slower RAM and the mobo you're looking supports up to DDR2 1066 officially. There should be no compatibility problem in this case. It should run with the slower speed of the two, which is 800 in this case. Lower speed simply results in lower performance. I think it depends on the processor if the performance hit will be significant or negligible (at least if you use an intel processor).

(note: i'm not exactly an expert, but i guess better 1 reply than 0)

 

[nefariouscaine]

the general rule of thumb is if you have JEDEC standard DDR it will work in most if not all mobo's / same general rule is applied to DDR2 as well with the growing trend being certain makers have ram that doesn't comply and requires more than 1.8v to work

If you ram works at JEDEC spec's of 1.8v and is DDR2 you should be fine for compatibility issues - as noted above you won't be running at the "max" supported and honestly if you are asking these questions likely you don't have a dire need for DDR2-1066 with DDR2-800 serving you just fine

*additional note* if you are planning on using a 32bit OS you won't get to use all 4 gigs as they are not addressable - you'll see 3'ish and thats it