Thanks for the Memories?

Well after much research on these forums in particular [thanks everyone,] I decided to get an Epox Motherboard and overclock an XP 1700+ now running at 12 or 12.5 *200 depending upon ambient room temperature [12.5 when room is below 74 degrees F.] I have made no mods to the motherboard, as it is working fine as is, and my (homemade water) cooling system involves 2 120mm fans blowing right onto the motherboard.

I'm pleased with the results, but I have a nagging, lingering question. I'm running memory at 266Mhz - 5,2,2,2 - how much real world [cough gaming] performance improvement could I expect if I sprung for PC3200 ram and ran it synchronously with my 400 mhz fsb?

I am on a budget, so I would be getting Micron or Samsung and running it as aggressively as possible at 400mhz fsb rather than springing for Corsair or other really high end stuff.

All advice will be appreciated.

-EpoxMonkey

Pc3200 over pc2100 you should notice about a 10% gain if not more running sync with the cpu. I would suggest getting the twinmos ram to go with the 8rda or get some hyperx. I dont think you will be able to run 200 fsb without modong the mobo but who know's. I can run my pc3000 hyperx @ 212 fsb but ut2k3 is unstable unless I drop it to about 210.

200 mhz fsb

I'm already running 200mhz (400mhz fsb) with no problems. Are you suggesting that switching to PC3200 ram will give me a total performance boost of about 10%, or that there is an additional bonus 10% as a byproduct of running ram synchronously?

-EpoxMonkey

well dude if your runnin 200mhz on a stick of pc2100 ram then that ram rox! id just keep it if it can do that. for more gaming performance get more ram not faster ram for bang for the buck. but 512 of pc3200 is around $120+ right now.

Unfortunately, I am running the memory at 66% of fsb, so while the multiplier/fsb is 200/400 the memory is running 133/266 at 5,2,2,2.

One stick is PC2700 and one is PC 2100, so I run at the best speed of the slower stick. I was asking about what I could expect if I upgraded the ram to run at 100% fsb - maybe 5,3,3,2 and how much it would cost.

I just read a pretty good article which suggests I could gain about 1000 3dMark 2001 points or 6fps in Unreal 2003 which seems to confirm JonSpd's estimate of about 10% overall improvement, but I would have to spring for GOOD PC3200 ram to run at those timings.

I guess I'm done for now and well pleased, as my system is quite stable and reliable with mind-blowing performance considering how little money I spent [$84 for 8RDA motherboard & $58 for XP 1700+ chip is all.] I only wish I had waited a couple weeks for one of these new Epox boards which reportedly run stable at 230/460 with no mods. Mine doesn't like much above 200/400. I boot at 216/433, but rarely make it into Windows and it's very unstable. Solid as a rock at 200/400 though.

-EpoxMonkey