Running Conroe with DDR ram

[perdomot]

Just saw a review for an Asrock 775Dual-VSTA mobo which lets you use an AGP card and DDR ram with the new C2D cpu and am wondering if this will limit performance. On the reviews of C2D it shows the FSB at 266 which I'm assuming is DDR2 at 133. I'm currently using a Pen D 805 with DDR and the default FSB listed is 133. I raised that to 166 which is the norm for my PC2700 ram and the 20 multiplier gives me a clock of 3.3 which I'm very happy with. However, the multis on C2D are much lower (7 for the E6300) so I'm thinking that using my old ram with the Asrock and C2D will only result in a clock of 1162 (7 X 166) which is lower than the default speed of 1.86Ghz which the cpu is supposed to run at. Am I right about this or will my DDR ram show up as 266 and I can bump it up to 400 with some PC3200 sticks I have? Thanks for any help clearing this up

 

[Furen]

If I had to take a guess I'd say yes. Conroe experiences benefits when you increase the FSB clock to 1333MHz, which means that it can gain from increased memory bandwidth. It also has many technologies that allow it to lessen the impact of high-latency ram, so going for low-latency, low-bandwidth ram probably will not help there. Then there's AGP...

I'm guessing that the 775Dual-VSTA will support FSB1066 so your fears there should be unfounded. You will need to run your memory and FSB Async, though, which could have a pretty big impact.

 

[AkumaX]

Originally posted by: perdomot
Just saw a review for an Asrock 775Dual-VSTA mobo which lets you use an AGP card and DDR ram with the new C2D cpu and am wondering if this will limit performance. On the reviews of C2D it shows the FSB at 266 which I'm assuming is DDR2 at 133. I'm currently using a Pen D 805 with DDR and the default FSB listed is 133. I raised that to 166 which is the norm for my PC2700 ram and the 20 multiplier gives me a clock of 3.3 which I'm very happy with. However, the multis on C2D are much lower (7 for the E6300) so I'm thinking that using my old ram with the Asrock and C2D will only result in a clock of 1162 (7 X 166) which is lower than the default speed of 1.86Ghz which the cpu is supposed to run at. Am I right about this or will my DDR ram show up as 266 and I can bump it up to 400 with some PC3200 sticks I have? Thanks for any help clearing this up

805 FSB at 266 which I'm assuming is DDR2 at 133 (not right)
805 FSB is really 133

you can run the FSB speed independent of what the RAM speed is
since your 805 cpu is originally 20 x 133, you could have set your ram to 166 and still kept the cpu at 133, but you'd run a divider instead (4:5 divider). in your case, you went 1:1 cpu:ram ratio.

the E6300 cpu FSB is really at 266, and the DDR2 is actually at 266 (or more commonly known as DDR2-533, which is PC2-4200). intel recommends at least DDR2 667 (or PC2-5400).

so the E6300 is 7 x 266 right? unless you got some DDR1 PC5400 ram (to o/c to 7 x 333), you're going to have to run a divider. also, hope that your mobo supports FSB past > 266 stable!

 

[perdomot]

I think I understand what you mean AkumaX. Sounds like I would better off getting some DDR2 800 with the mobo. The article at Xbitlabs had them getting the FSB up to 420 so if I can get to at least 400, that would enable me to achieve a 2.8 Ghz OC which would be fine by me.

 

[AkumaX]

Originally posted by: perdomot
I think I understand what you mean AkumaX. Sounds like I would better off getting some DDR2 800 with the mobo. The article at Xbitlabs had them getting the FSB up to 420 so if I can get to at least 400, that would enable me to achieve a 2.8 Ghz OC which would be fine by me.

cool, g/l on that

 

[o1die]

I would download the asrock manual off their website before ordering. Asrock boards aren't designed for serious overclocking.