quick memory spec for this motherboard please?

Does the 1066MHz speed matter? The specs say the board accepts 600 or 800. My CPU is going to be a 9550 I think which is 1333FSB. Do all these crazy numbers have to match up? I seem to remember in the past if they didn't the whole lot would go at the lowest speed, is that the case?
 
stephentw said:
Does the 1066MHz speed matter? The specs say the board accepts 600 or 800. My CPU is going to be a 9550 I think which is 1333FSB. Do all these crazy numbers have to match up? I seem to remember in the past if they didn't the whole lot would go at the lowest speed, is that the case?
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If your mobo can only support 800MHz RAM then it'll run any faster RAM down to that speed - that's what you're thinking of. A lot of higher clocked RAM will need you to manually adjust some settings in BIOS - most likely the RAM speed (1066MHz) and the voltage as most higher clocked RAM will require 2.1 or 2.2v as opposed to the default 1.8v

Your CPU is rated at 1333MHz FSB (333 x 4) at stock speeds, but for example you can overclock the FSB to ramp up the CPU speed - I have the same CPU but am running it on an effective 1600MHz FSB (400 x 4) thus giving 3.4GHz core speed.

The speed of the FSB is linked to the speed of the RAM as a ratio and most good OC'ing mobo's will allow you to manually adjust them by setting your own ratio's.

Overclocking is a very involved business at the high end but great gains can be had with relatively few adjustments for most users - there are some very good stickies in the 'Cooling and Overclocking' forum here which explain all these different speed setting and their inter-relationships far better than I can, I suggest you have a read through them.:)
 
So if this will run down to 800mhz won't I be better getting 800mhz ram? Or are you saying I can manually adjust the bios to allow the ram to run at it's native speed of 1066mhz? Or do you mean the adjustments in the bios just make the ram work at 800mhz.

If I'm not planning on overclocking it at all though, could I just shove it in and thats that, or will I have a pain fiddling on with it to get it to work.
 
stephentw said:
So if this will run down to 800mhz won't I be better getting 800mhz ram? Or are you saying I can manually adjust the bios to allow the ram to run at it's native speed of 1066mhz? Or do you mean the adjustments in the bios just make the ram work at 800mhz.

If I'm not planning on overclocking it at all though, could I just shove it in and thats that, or will I have a pain fiddling on with it to get it to work.
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If you get this RAM and 'shove it in' then it will probably run at 800MHz even if you had a mobo capable of running faster RAM as most manufacturers will set the 'default' of their RAM to a setting that is considered to be the most compatible with the greatest number of mobo's. To run the RAM at it's stated max speed of 1066 will require some tweaking in BIOS as I already stated. This would not be considered 'overclocking' for this RAM as it is guaranteed to run stable at that speed.

If your mobo can only run 800MHz max then by all means get some of that RAM, this product was linked to because it is very very good value for money at the moment and although it may well be 'overkill' for your mobo at present it's always worth keeping one eye on the future when buying anything of this kind.

If in future you wanted to do some OC'ing of your CPU for example, then the faster RAM might well be of benefit to you as there are numerous posts in these forums of people who's attempted OC has been thwarted by their RAM not being capable enough, and they have had to settle for a lesser OC.

If you are determined to buy only what is currently supported by your board's max limit then poss consider this Kingston 4Gb PC6400 kit (it's only been put on the site today and is great value imo). This following is from the description "This module has been tested to run at DDR2 800MHz at low latency timing of 4-4-4-12 at 1.95V. The SPD is programmed to JEDEC standard latency 667Mhz timing of 5-5-5-15 at 1.8V" - ie: when you 'shove it in' it'll run at it's default speed of 667MHz at C5 latencies and 1.8v - you will have to go into BIOS and change the DRAM Voltage to 1.95v and poss also the speed to 800MHz.

Hope this helps.:)
 
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