How does Intel & RAM Speeds actually work?

[FatRakoon]

I dont mean to sound thick here, but I am not really an Intel user.

I am starting to feel a little worried here, but its seemingly different to how the AMDs play with it.

For example...

My P4 is 200mhz, so I need 400Mhz RAM right?

My conroe is 266 so I need 533 RAM.

Fine.

Now, the RAM I have, is 400Mhz and its running just fine at 533, and indeed it even defaults to 533, but trust me here, its only 400mhz

So, is it in reality 800mhz RAM?

I will be wanting to overclock my conroe once I get good RAM.

I am assuming that 5400 RAM, is 667Mhz, or in the CPU side of things, its capable of 333, or in english money, it should get a conroe to 3.3Ghz

I am therefore also assuming that 6400 RAM, being 800mhz, will get the CPU's FSB to 400Mhz... Am I right so far, or am I on the totally wrong track?

So, if I got myself DDR2-5400 then I am looking to max out my FSB at 333 and 6400 I can go to 400 yes?

I have never had to buy DDR2 before, and the one time I did, I made a mistake thinking it was stock DDR you see... I am now using that alone and as I said, its only rated to 400 ( DDR2 @ 400 you say? - yes! ) yet it defaults to 533 which is really confusing me... In fact if I do run it at 200 ( well, 400 ) then its seriously slow and buggy... But Im not making amistake, cos it really is only DDR2-3200 you see...

Confused as hell

Also looking at getting a 6400, which is 1067Mhz, so for that I would need PC2-8000 just to run it wont I?

Bloody really confused here.

And its no wonder I like my AMDs so much.

Anyway, please give us some info cos like I said, Im losing the plot here!

I dont want to waste money on getting the wrong RAM you see...

 

[pieman109]

You're suufering from exactly the same probs I did, I couldn't get me head around the figures. The thing with DDR2 is, it runs at a lot higher speed. I've got some geil pc6400 that runs at 800mhz (400mhz in real terms as opposed to 200mhz for pc3200), so if you overclock, you'll be getting closer the default speed of say this memory as you raise the fsb from 266 to 400 @ 1:1
I hope this helps a bit.

 

[smids]

All you need to know in a nutshell:

Conroe requires a minimum of PC2-4200 RAM to run 1:1 - this is 266Mhz RAM which is DDR'ed to 533mhz.

If you want to overclock, you want some good clocking PC2-5300 (333Mhz, DDR666) at least.

If you know you will be hitting 400Mhz FSB i.e. 400x CPU multi, then some good PC2-6400 (400mhz, DDR800).

I hope this helps a bit.

Basically, you have 3 speeds to choose from depending on what FSB you want to run at (ignoring dividers etc):

PC2-4200 - 266mhz (stock FSB)
PC2-5300 - 333mhz
PC2-6400 - 400mhz

There is higher but it's not worth it IMO.

 

[FatRakoon]

Thanks guys... Its pretty much verified my thoughts on it.

What of the Conroe 6400 thats 1066Mhz FSB?
For that it needs PC2-8000 or is that also my mistake? It really needs only 533 RAM.

 

[smids]

Thanks guys... Its pretty much verified my thoughts on it.

What of the Conroe 6400 thats 1066Mhz FSB?
For that it needs PC2-8000 or is that also my mistake? It really needs only 533 RAM.

No - the FSB is quad pumped on Intels.

i.e. 266 x 4 = 1066mhz FSB.