Planning to OC on 200mhz FSB... should I get higher than 3200 ram?

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krizzle

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Jun 28, 2004
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Noobie question, but face it, we were all noobs once...
I will be getting an Abit KV8 Pro with an A64 3200+, which I believe runs on 200mhz FSB. Now, I will be doing some overclocking. What I want to know is if it is worth getting ram rated more than 3200, such as perhaps 4000 which runs at 500mhz. Theoretically, I see it as I have some... 50mhz to up on the FSB before I hit the ram's actual intended operation speed, and this way I would not be stressing the ram up to 250mhz FSB overclock. Then I can go north from there. This could yield me some more OC, right?
Anyone with experience, please do share!
 
krizzle said:
Theoretically, I see it as I have some... 50mhz to up on the FSB before I hit the ram's actual intended operation speed, and this way I would not be stressing the ram up to 250mhz FSB overclock. Then I can go north from there. This could yield me some more OC, right?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately what is good in theory doesn't always work in fact. The major problem you will be facing is that as you increase the speed of the FSB you are also increasing the speed of the chip. In order to REALLY push the FSB, you will have to lower the multiplier of your CPU, so that you don't hit the CPU's OC ceiling. Now, if your CPU is locked, then you may hit a max OC before you ever get near the RAM's potential operating speed. So there is that. Obviously if your CPU is unlocked this isn't as much of an issue, as you can lower the multiplier as needed.

Now, the major advantage to getting PC4000 RAM is that you are guaranteed that the RAM can handle a major overclock. PC3200 RAM might top out at 220Mhz or something like that. But DDR 500 RAM is guaranteed to work up to a FSB setting of 250Mhz, and then you can go up from there with confidence. Given the almost negligible price difference, I would recommend going with PC4000 just in case you really can push your FSB to the max.

Hope this helped.
 
Yep, I bought yesterday my whole system upgrade:

AMD Athlon64 3200+, 2.0 ghz, 1mb L2 Cache, 200 mhz fsb
Abit KV8 Pro Motherboard (VIA K8T800 Pro chipset, 1ghz HyperTransfer)
Visiontek Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition, 256mb DDR3, 520mhz core
1024mb Corsair TwinX DDR500 PC4000 ram = 50mhz on FSB for overclock
Koolance Exos liquid cooling unit = self contained
Koolance CPU-300-H06 proc block = 100% copper w/ 24k gold contact
Koolance GPU-180-L06 vid block = 100% copper w/ 24k gold contact

I think that my CPU is locked, which kinda sucks then..
 
Its only locked upward. You'll peak that chip before your RAM runs out. Only problem is the PC4000 cert was probably done a Intel box.
 
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