Acquired ddr pc3700 but can i use it?

Yeggstry · 31 Dec 2007 at 11:56

Hi guys,

a mate of mine has just offered me 1 gig of pc3700 for use in my computer after he has just upgraded to a newer motherboard. However i haven't been able to see if my A7N8X-E deluxe can handle it.

He seems sure i can but i thought the board could only handle up to pc3200 and that i have 1 gig of pc2900 in. The processor is a sempron 3000+ barton.

Can i use this memory? :-)

thanks in advance.

mattyrigby00 · 31 Dec 2007 at 12:01

it'll work fine, it'll just run at pc2900

mnemonix · 31 Dec 2007 at 12:04

It should work fine, and will run at the same speed as the pc2900. As far as I can tell this board supports pc3200 anyway.

pc3200 is an indication of the memory's rated speed, the speed it actually runs is determined by your bios settings - memory divider & bus speed.

Yeggstry · 31 Dec 2007 at 12:16

Thanks guys for the quick response :-)

i haven't decided yet whether i will add it to what is there already for 2 gig or if i will stick with faster 1 gig. Presumably if i just put the pc3700 sticks in they will just run at 3200 :-)

i'm not at my computer at the moment but i haven't really played around with the bios memory settings so i would guess they are at the defaults :-)

postmanfw · 31 Dec 2007 at 13:18

I might be wrong but the semperon 3000 runs at 12x166Mhz so the ram will run at pc2700 (166Mhz) speeds. Dont use a divider to get it running faster as on socket A this decreases performance rather than increase.

On the plus side it will probably run at tighter timings at that lower speed