should i get a 512mb stick of crucial pc 2700 ddr or corsair value select pc 3200 ddr to go with my new athlon xp 2600 barton? which will work better with the processor? there is a posibility of overclocking, but not too extreme.
have i missed something here? i thought 2500 were bartons and 2600 were tbreds. What motherboard mate? If you think there's any chance you might want to overclock (of course you do ) then go with the 3200. IF you plan on getting an nforce2 board then get 2 x 256 sticks.
They recently released 2600 bartons. not sure why really, maybe they thought they could push for a few more quid as most of the 2500's seem so good. It does depend alot on the motherboard, but basically the PC2700 will run at the same stock speed as the stock speed of the barton, ie FSB 166. If you want to overclock tehn you should go for the PC 3200 (fsb 200) to give yourself some headroom.
yeah, they have recently released an xp 2600 barton. it runs standard at 1.9 ghz. the mainboard is a biostar nforce 2 ultra 400 m7ncd pro and can take up to three gig of ram. (link last board on the page, the specs page isnt coming up right now.) the fsb on the barton is 333, and so is the bus speed for the crucial. i once heard that you should keep all off your components divisors the same, ie, if you have a processor that runs at 333 you should have ram that runs at 333, it helps avoid problems, but does this matter any more? i dont plan on running ONLY 512mb. my grandma decided to buy me the 2600 and a dimm of ram fro christmas (mind you, she has NO idea what she is buying, but hey wouldnt that be super cool if she did?!) and i may get the other 512mb dimm from my aunt. so im gonna have two so that i can use the ddr capability of the board even if i have to buy the second one myself. the reason i asked is that the 2700 was at 85 bucks...now the 3200 is at 84 bucks...so i was thinking of getting the 3200 for the same price that my grandma was expecting to pay.
If you get the pc3200 you can increase the fsb to 200mhz, this will overclock your cpu, multiplier x fsb. You will have little overclocking potential with the pc2700 as it runs at 166 already. The cpu, at stock, runs at 166mhz but u can change it so that the ram and the cpu run at 200.
You should run the ram and CPU in sync yes, but this is not for stablitly reasons, but for perfomance. It is possible to run them at different speeds using dividers, i.e. 5:4 could be an FSB of 200 but the ram running at 333 (or an equivilant FSB of 166) but it makes no sence as it can harm performance. This said though there is nothing to say that a DDR400 stick of ram cannot run at DDR333 if you want it to. This means you will be able to up teh FSB to 200 without pushing the RAM beyond its stated stability limit (a generic stick will not go much higher than this anyway) If you want to o/c the FSB further you will need better quality ram. IMO there is no real need for motre than 512 MB RAM unless you are going to use it, and most people dont. You would be much better off spending the money for 1GB of cheap ram on 512MB of really nice PC3200 or PC3500, Mushkin level II for example. Gettin ga higher FSB will improve system performance much more than just an o/c'd CPU. Its all about the bandwidth.
3200 RAM will run at least up to its rated speed of 400(and usually a bit over as well). BUT.. If you set it to run at 333 then it will run at 333, for instance if your processor will only run at 333 then you may want to set your RAM FSB at 333 as well to keep them synchronous. What is does mean is that IF YOU WANT TO, you can run it faster. 3200 will give you more room for overclocking. Especially with a processor like a 2600 which should run at 200 fsb easily. If you plan on running a dual channel arrangement on your nforce2 board then you need 2 identical sticks of ram. pref same brand, same type, everything. - Get the 3200 - then get another stick of the same stuff at a later date. - 512mb should be enough for most tasks.
so if i ran everything stock, cpu and ram, my performance would be hurt by using the 3200 with the 2600 xp? can you run the ddr400 at ddr333 without harming it? i know that twin sticks of 512 is a bit of overkill, but im sure ill use it between the photoshop and all the audio editing i do.
1. No. well, by definition, maybe yes. BUT... you dont have to run the 3200 ram at stock speed. If you want to run the cpu at stock, then run the ram at 333 also. This would give no disadvantage over running 2700 ram at 333. In fact it would be better because you could have tighter timings. 2. Yes. 3. Yes.
