Core2Duo E4300 and Corsair XMS2 DDR2 675MHZ

Spy2007

Spy2007

Spy2007

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22 Jun 2007
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I am really trying to limit my budget whilst building a Core2Duo system and my last port of call is the RAM. What i would really like to know is whether i would run into potential problems with a 9x333 fsb using a e4300 and only this ddr2-675mhz corsair memory. I will be buying a motherboard that is up to scratch (asus P5N-E SLI) so this shouldn't be an issue. It simply is a case of budget and the 666mhz are still considerably cheaper than the 800mhz modules. So 3ghz would be the maximum o/c that i would try to achieve anyway. Anyone else out there running this sort of combination?

one more thing...if i was running the e4300 and the corsair xms2 675mhz ram all at stock settings, would the ram be bottlenecking the cpu's performance as it is not running at the cpu's stated 800mhz (4x200)?

help would be greatly appreciated here.
 
Welcome to the forum :)

That should get you to 3Ghz fine :)

In answer to your question about the ram being a bottleneck... The ram is DDR2 which means that at 667Mhz, it has been doubled = so its really at 333Mhz. So the ram would be underclocked at 200FSB.

When you overclock and aim for 3Ghz (9x333), that will be your cpu overclocked but your ram running at its default speed.

I hope this helps :)
 
Headroom

Thankyou for the welcome :)

...so, if i used 800mhz DDR2 ram it would only mean the capability of a greater o/c? Given that you reckon at stock settings even 666 ram would be underclocked. Does this "headroom" in bandwith get used by the system without o/c? I guess what i'm asking now is fundamentally what difference would i notice between 800 and 666 ram if i wasn't overclocking and also, if i was overclocking?

thankyou for your help :)
 
If you had PC2-5300 (667Mhz) ram, you would be running that at a lower speed than what its capable of and so you wouldn't see any bandwidth gain. You would probably have the option to run the ram with tighter timings, which can help the bandwidth. The timing of the ram is usually 4-4-4-12 or 5-5-5-15 (the lower the better).

Whereas if you got PC2-6400 (800Mhz) ram, it would give you the option and more headroom for overclocking. Again, if you had it below its rated speed of 800Mhz, you might have the option of running it at tighter timings.

So, in short, you wouldn't notice any difference if you didn't overclock and if you did overclock, you would see a difference because you could possibly go from 1.8Ghz (stock E4300 speed) to maybe 3Ghz and this is done by your ram being set at a higher speed.
 
Thanks

Great stuff! I'll let you know how i get on when it's all put together. Has anyone really seen the benefits of dual core processing yet on any applications.

I produce my own music myspace/spy2007 and play games.

I have come from an (ouch) xp2000+ socket A system, and briefly played with an o/c xp-m 2500 @2.3ghz (bad stepping) and decided enough was enough. Mind you, the music on my page was all done on a 1667mhz system which was rock solid!

I'm hoping that even if i get a stable system at around 2.6 /2.7 ghz per core it will make a huge difference. Now I use older music production software so i know that C2D isn't going to be in full implementation however that large L2 cache should allow more plugins to run.

I read constantly people getting 3-3.2 ghz on stock cooling and they always say stable, but i wonder how stable this really is in a real world setting?

rgds
 
I hope your build goes well :)

I changed from a 3800x2 (AMD dual core cpu at 2Ghz) to an E6300 and I noticed the difference at stock speeds. Overclocking it will make it super fast :D

When people say stable, they mean its 100% stable and tested for 24 hours under full load (both cpu cores tested to their limits).

You will enjoy the upgrade because of the massive jump in hardware :)
 
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