Memory For CPU Advice

[intruder369]

I am thinking of getting an Intel E8500 CPU for the new tower I am building. The new mobo I have just purchased is an Asus P5Q Pro Turbo. I have not long built my son-in-law a new tower using the same mobo with an E7500 and 2 gigs of 1066Mhz Kingston Memory which matched the same FSB as the CPU. His new tower is running great and I am well pleased with its performance and stability, which enticed me to build myself a new tower using the same mobo.

Now with my mobo I am thinking of getting a faster CPU. I have no intentions of overclocking it, as I am not a gamer at all, I am very much more into music and the odd bit of video editing. I am not into 64 bit systems either, so I will be very much using Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit on the new PC with 2 gigs of memory, I could use 4 gigs but I do not believe a 32 bit OS supports it, or maybe I am wrong, I am pretty sure you can only get up to 3 gigs use out of using 4 gigs, so I do not really see the point to go any higher than 2 gigs for what I am going to be using my PC for.

Now the thing that is confusing me the most is that the E8500 as an FSB of 1333Mhz and as this mobo I have only supports DDR2 I have very little chance of matching up the memory to 1333Mhz. If I could it would be very expensive I am pretty sure of that. But what I would like to know is there any point to doing such a thing. What would you suggest I go along with as regarding Memory. 1066Mhz or 800Mhz. Or is it even worth going for 11500Mhz and 1200Mhz.

So any good advice would be well appreciated if you can please.

 

[HeX]

1066MHz stuff would suit you fine.

 

[Alsedo]

There's no point in 1066MHz memory if you're not overclocking. The E7500 actually matches with 533MHz memory and the E8500 with 667MHz. You need to halve the FSB of the CPU.

There's little point in a home user getting Windows 7 Ultimate over Premium. I'd recommend 64-bit unless you have any old peripherals that don't have 64-bit drivers and you don't want to replace them. You're right that you'd only be able to make use of about 3 out of 4GB in a 32-bit system.

 

[intruder369]

There's no point in 1066MHz memory if you're not overclocking. The E7500 actually matches with 533MHz memory and the E8500 with 667MHz. You need to halve the FSB of the CPU.

There's little point in a home user getting Windows 7 Ultimate over Premium. I'd recommend 64-bit unless you have any old peripherals that don't have 64-bit drivers and you don't want to replace them. You're right that you'd only be able to make use of about 3 out of 4GB in a 32-bit system.

The 667Mhz theory for halving the FSB of the CPU seems logical but if I was to go with 64 bit and use 4 gigs how would I be able to obtain DDR2 333Mhz memory sticks, is there such a thing in DDR2.

As for the old peripherals for use with 64 bit, I do not really see that as a problem, as I am using hardware that is all up to date, but what would concern me is the software's reliability to run on 64 bit, which most is very much limited to 32 bit system. Is there actually anything out there that actually uses 64 bits. I do not even think the top games do, certainly not to its potential.

 

[Alsedo]

Sorry, I meant that you use 667MHz memory with a 1333MHz FSB. It's also know as PC2-5300. However, you may as well get 800MHz (PC2-6400) memory as the price difference is so small.

Going 64-bit would mostly be for the extra memory and just because there are no real downsides any more.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Off Topic:

There's no point in 1066MHz memory if you're not overclocking. The E7500 actually matches with 533MHz memory and the E8500 with 667MHz. You need to halve the FSB of the CPU

Hey Alsedo,

I don't think that's true?

The Intel® Core™2 platform always runs better with faster memory, even an older 266MHz-FSB (1066MHz-System Bus) matches up perfectly with 533MHz (DDR2-1066) memory! . . .

I have noticed over the years that configuring memory correctly is the most *misunderstood* part of the LGA775 platform! . . . hike it up on a memory divider and everything runs faster, the system feels more "snappy" etc . . . running memory at sync [1:1] is really not ideal unless your running quite old and slow ram like 333MHz (DDR2-666) or 400MHz (DDR2-800)

Learn the rules . . . then break them!

 

[intruder369]

Yes looking at it I think the 1066Mhz will be fine.