DDR RAM speed and FSB speed, with consideration to CPU speed

i plan on buying amd because it is cheaper. if i go with the extremely popular tbred 2100+ athlon, it only has a 266MHZ fsb, correct? i could probably overclock this to 300MHz, where pc2400 ddr ram runs at, right? i would prefer having an athlon 2700 with 333MHz fsb OCed to 400 and use pc3200 ram.

will i get ANY significant performance gains from buying pc3200 ram or 3500 ram over whatever the fsb speed is? (i think i wont, because the bottleneck is the fsb of the cpu, right?)

is it true that enabling the ddr support doesnt help as much for athlons as for p4s because of the slow fsb? for example, i take an athlon with 333MHz fsb and OC it to 400. i take a p4 with an 800MHz fsb. i put in 2 sticks of 512MB pc3200ram in each one... the pentium would get a better performance gain from hving two 512 sticks rather than 1 1GBstick in, right?

suppose i just have the athlon 2700, does anyone have an idea on whether i should stick 1 large dimm, or 2 medium or 3 medium dimms in? (1GB, 2x512MB, 3x512MB).

i plan on using my rig for digital video editing and for 3d gaming, if this helps.

Welcome To The Forums!!!!!

.....and to the addiction

I'll address your first issue only & leave the bandwidth limitations of the AMD platform for others to talk about.

The T2B 1700+ & 2100+ 266FSB chips have no problems reaching 200MHz/400FSB so you don't really have to buy a 333FSB chip. You just need a very good motherboard & high quality memory. LOOK HERE for my FSB overclock on a T2B 1700+.

200MHz fsb is similar to or the same as 400MHz fsb..?

i will have nearly the same performance with either?

200MHz is 400FSB on AMD CPUs.

Lots of questions. Welcome to the Forums.

I can only answer to the best of my knowledge.

Overclocking is delicate, and you want quality components. A good motherboard (Nforce2 based) with good ram (Kingston HyperX or Corsair XMS) is going to overclock very well. Typically with a 2100+ people are seeing 3000+ speeds pretty easily, providing you have the cooling. That is with the FSB at 400mhz. At this speed, you have a darn good memory bandwidth, and I don't think Intel could touch it. (For the price)

There really isn't much difference between 3200 and 3500.
If you are planning on editing video, the more ram the merrier. Usually the more ram you fill in the harder it is to reach higher FSB. Might have to really get the juice to the vdimm.

okay, that seems to help. got it. lemme take notes. (scribbling furiously 't2b 2100+ athlon, underclock to 200MHz fsb, use pc3200 ram...')

okay, i plan on using an nforce2 epox 8rda+. do you know if i will get max performance by using just slots 1and2 or by using all three?

You dont underclock to 200MHz/400FSB because the default is 133MHz/266FSB, you overclock

okay... fsb is not measured in MHz? i have a 266fsb, which is actually 133MHz, and i OC it to 200MHz, which gives me fsb400?

i apologize heartily for my incessant questions, i thought i knew a lot. i just didnt talk to anyone about it all before, just read reviews of stuff on websites. im really a geek, trust me.

nforce2 mobo, epox8rda+
corsair pc3200 xms ram, as much as possible (1.5GB)
good cooling system
athlon 2100+ xp thoroughbred
okay. i need to actually try this stuff out, i would understand better. i thank you both and appreciate your help, it means a lot to a beginner like me.

well, one thing to note is that ddr ram speeds are rated at twice the fsb speed, therefore, pc2700@333mhz actually runs on 166fsb, & pc3200@400mhz runs on 200fsb, but on both the up & down clock cycles of the cpu, giving it the double data rate.
and yes, fsb is measured in mhz

EDIT:
i just reread sonny's post about 200mhz is 400fsb on amd platforms...can someone clarify this for me a little more in depth?

OOOOOOOOOOH! hence 'double data rate!' okay, i get it now! i thought that just meant you got better performance with 2 of them, rofl! sweet! thank you guys so much!

No need to apologize, if nobody asked the basic questions the knowledge will not be shared.

I always say/write/type xxxMHz/xxxFSB since the more popular CPUs will either double pump or quad pump the MHz rating. Yes the FSB is measured in MHz but to minimize the confusion when discussing it I always spell out the double pumping that AMD CPUs do. When they say an AMD CPUs FSB is 266MHz what that actually means is that it is 133MHz but double pumped for example;

T2B 1700+ is a 133MHz/266FSB CPU
T2B 2100+ is a 133MHz/266FSB CPU
T2B 2700+ is a 166MHz/333FSB CPU

thanks for the clarification!

and ashlar, we're all here to help, so ask away! it also helps to visit every so often & read about things that are going on...i, myself am a newbie to oc'ing, and even though i've not yet build my rig to practice what i'm reading, i'm still learning little by little...

boy, boy, can people read some basic abc before making post?
Welcome to OC world! Please do your basic homework before your major purchase of components. Otherwise you are going to waste lots of your hard earned dough.