Best memory for the buck,

My mother board allows me to change the speed and or over clock the ram or and cpu. I know there isn't much difference especially with such a lame amd chip, but it gets the job done. So thanks for your input i think i might as well just go for the faster cheeper pc3200 1gb on 82 bucks on zipzoomfly.com. thanks

Answer as to is it worth increasing mem for better faster and more stable performance is yes;as win xp ( esp. xp pro ) eats mem then upgrading your mem is far better and much cheaper than looking at buying faster!!! processor as its the mem that gives you the zoom zoom factor i run an AMD Athlon XP 4 processor with 1 mb of pc 2700 and trust me that makes a difference and not neccessary to use pc3200 to get that....Eightbalnut

Your'e running a computer with 1 MB of RAM?

I hope that he meant 1 gig...although I remember the days of going to Sams Club and buying 4 250K sticks so we could get 1MB and thinking that was hot stuff !! I think that package deal cost $80 back then !!

A simple typo my man i run 1 GIGABYTE of memory ok

I'm doing some very old photo scans and restores. I have to use hi-res scans to get anything to work with and I get very large files ( one came out at 462 Mb ) and the processing uses so much virtual memory, I'm spending 90% of my time at the 2nd PC, waiting for the 1st to finish. I have 512 Mb now which I'm doubling ( 1 Gb is max ) which I hope will make a real difference. If that doesn't work, I'll get a new PC with 2 Gb. I've got months of work ahead. I haven't seen any Whetstones( etc ) for graphics processing. Too bad. It's really needed.

where are you getting that the fsb is only 333? is that speed inherent to the cpu or soemthing?

FSBx8=memory speed

So 333x8=2700 (rounded off)

Very confusing stuff.
PCxxxx
DDRxxx

ok so the FSB rating on the motherboards is simply what it's capable of or is there more that i'm not getting. i mean intel chipsets commonly have FSB of 533 to 800 mhz. so would one have to use pc4800 to get full useage of a chipset with an 800MHz FSB? and in my case i'm using pc3200 so is my FSB limited to 400MHz regardless of how i'm set up oterwise? i'm amd64 3200 with nforce4 Ultra btw.

get into that tech-no stuff, it gives me a headache trying to translate it into english.

So here's my cloudy view.

You have a machine with a 800mhz fsb(big pipe).
The big pipe connects to the memory controller.
You have one stick of pc3200 memory.
The memory controller creates a 400mhz bus(small pipe) to run that stick. (single channel mode)

Now let's say you have two sticks of pc3200 memory.
The memory controller creates two 400mhz buses (two small pipes) one for each stick. (Dual channel mode)

The one or two small pipes feed into the big pipe.

That's kind of a big picture that doesn't cover all the variables.

i'll mull that over...

Let's go uncomplicated. I had 512MB RAM pc3200 400 and went for 512 more. I was quite shure I was not going to appreciate the diff.... buy I DID. I cost me less than $80. TigerD.

I have an intel motherboard with 800Fsb and 512 MB DDR Ram(dual-256x2)with Win XP SP2
But on reading these posts on this forum,I checked the rams and both are Pc 400 forget the 2700/3200 stuff.

So does this mean that my pc isn't running correctly/isn't running to its potential?

PC3200=ddr400=pc400 and perhaps some other names.

Makers do that just to aggrevate the heck out of people.

Sounds like your fine.

If you are running at rated speed (no overclocking) then you are probably doing OK. Some manufactures rate their memory at 200 MHz, some at 400 MHz, and still call it PC3200. No real standard here in the way they are advertised, and some confusion exist because some main boards are rated for dual channel PC 3200, other boards are not. Dual channel = 200mhz (fsb) x2 (double pumped)=400mh x 2 channels = 800mhz. A machine with a FSB speed of 200mh with dual channel DDR (dual data rate - dual channel ) memory has an effective speed of 800mh.

You need to look up the specs on your computer and see what type of memory it was designed for. If would stand to reason that if you bought a ''package deal'' , that the correct memory type is in the computer. However, that memory might not be the fastest in it's class. (IE, cheap memory). In that case, trading for some faster memory in the same class, but with better latency numbers (2.5-2-2 vs 3-4-4) will make a slight (but noticeable)increase in speed of the machine. Buying PC 3700 memory won't help, if the chipset on the mainboard isn't designed to take advantage of it.

Now, you are as confused as I am Have a nice day.

buy a pc where you can use 400 instead very simple and for the guy doing graphics work get yourself a mac far better for graphics

We spend a lot of time watching/listening to BBC. There was a time when their programmes were considered to be the yardstick for the English language. Have you listened to BBC lately. With the exception of a few commentators like Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings, I've virtually closed my ears to American TV. And the schools aren't much better. So, who's teaching English and where?

Amen. And the original post is no where NEAR as bad as some of the false answers given. I suspect 4th graders aren't swapping RAM, but you would think by the grammar...

I will make this short and simple.If any of you decide to try overclocking youur processor be prepared to need a new processor very soon as you will 'burn it out' just buy extra memory instead safer and cheaper.

Not entirely true. What kills any solid state device is heat. If you understand how to get rid of the heat, you can overclock to the limit of the mainboard and memory. If you fail to get rid of the heat, then....you have problems.

Most fans will work for mild overclocking, but you should check the fins on the heat sink about once a month, and clean them thoroughly . Clogged heat sinks cause major problems, and the most common cause of failure. Most modern processors/ chipsets on mainboards have thermal shutdown circuits which will reduce the clock speed of the processor as it approaches max thermal. The processor will shutdown completely at some point. If you continuously run it against this limit.....your processor life will be short.

These conditions can occur , even if you don't overclock. If you let your heat sink fins clog, high processor temps will occur. Case air filtering can be very important, depending on where you live, and how dusty the environment around the computer is.

I run a water cooler on a 3.2 Gig Prescott Intell clocked at 3.5 Gig , and never let it get above 45deg C (that is at 2 hours of 100% processor ) It should live long and well. The water cooling allows me to have a nice , quiet computer, instead of listening to the loud ''volcano +7'' fan that I was running. It sounded like a leaf blower.

If you have a 3.0 Gig processor or above you probably have considerable fan noise, if you are keeping it cool.

Just the facts.

do you realy think that everyone that overclocks is going to burn out their cpu. well my athlon 3000 venice at stock speeds (1800 mhz) ran at 31

sorry I should have double checked for typos.
Still looking for input on my query