Your thoughts on FSB speed/RAM speed

[SneakyStuff]

I have a motherboard with an Intel Brookdale i845E chipset. This chipset uses pc2100 RAM, and I'm currently using a 400 MHz FSB Pentium 4. My question is this. I was thinking of upgrading to a 2.4 or 2.53 GHz Pentium 4 (Which according to dell my mobo would accept) with a 533 MHz FSB. Would pc2100, and a 533 MHz FSB run ok? And if I upped my RAM to 1GB, would that along with a faster processor be a better idea than building an Athlon XP system for $450?

 

[SneakyStuff]

bibbidy BUMP :sun:

 

[CrucialLabs]

What memory bus speeds does your motherboard handle? BTW: what is the model number of your MB? The motherboard is the deciding factor here. If it will only take PC2100 or PC2700 then you should not have any problems. If the memory bus speed of the I845 MB is 266MHz then there really is no sense in jumping to PC2700. Everything should work together but you maybe bottlenecking the CPU with a slower MB bus speed.

Hope this helps.

 

[SneakyStuff]

My MOBO only accepts pc2100. As for what speed it is running at, let me run AIDA32 and get back to you.

OK, it's 133 MHz DDR (267 MHz effective)

 

[CrucialLabs]

A processor with a 533MHz FSB and PC2100 should play nice together. You may get system slow downs every once in a while due to bottlenecking. You may have to manually change the bus speed in the BIOS to run the processor at spec. Install the processor and check the bus to make sure the processor is showing up right and check to see the memory is reporting the right MHz. You will not have any problems. I am speculating when it comes to the bottlenecking, you may or may not have any system slow downs. Save the money and run with what you have.