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Can i just add faster RAM when ocing my FSB instead of ocing my RAM?

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CrazyBauxite

Registered
Joined
Oct 18, 2005
Say my RAM runs at 400 MHz and my FSB runs at 400 MHz. I want to increase my FSB further but say my RAM won't overclock. No I don't want to know how to overlclock my RAM, what I want to know is this: If I buy a 433 MHz stick of RAM will it run at the 400 MHz of my FSB? And will it run at 433 MHz if I oc my FSB to 433 MHz?
 
yes to both questions. but im confused by your language. the FSB is the path between the ram and cpu (its really alot more than that, but for now...) so if you OC the fsb you also OC the ram. think of the tw0 as one and the same,... essentially. .unless you use the divider. although imop they are totally worthless on a A-XP setup. but the real question is/should be "can the motherboard go that high?". youll have a nice a7v8x-x there if it can hit 233fsb. id say it has a %30 chance of makin it.

try fiddlin with your divider on the ram/fsb to see if your board can even go that high, i.e. llower ram speed so as to take ram outta the equation, then raise FSB speed in increments (i use 10mhz) till it locks up/wont boot then back it down 5mhz. see what happens. may need to lower even more. but the idea is to find out what the board can do by taking the ram outta the equation. dont want to buy that new fast ram only to find out your board starts wiggin at 205fsb.
 
Ok I understand now thanks; plus I read a lot more stickys. I wouldn't want to go past 400MHz fsb because I would achieve decreased performance gains since I would have to add the RAM divider. I may as well just increase the core CPU frequency after 400 MHz fsb.
 
CrazyBauxite said:
Ok I understand now thanks; plus I read a lot more stickys. I wouldn't want to go past 400MHz fsb because I would achieve decreased performance gains since I would have to add the RAM divider. I may as well just increase the core CPU frequency after 400 MHz fsb.

hmm.. you see, crazybauxite, when you overclock the CPU, you are overclocking the ram at the same time. there is nothing you can do about this. so, in short, you can go for the rated ram @ 433mhz, or you can use a memory divider and keep it down as close to 400mhz as you possibly can. now quite honestly i dont know why you would do this because overclocking your ram, you will see quite a performance jump. if you ram will overclock, why not do it? do you see what were saying. so if your going to overclock your cpu, you either need to overclock it with the ram in mind also (basically letting your ram be the bottleneck, and not your CPU) or you can use a memory divider and overclock your cpu. sorry i wasnt more clear in my first post. going to these forums everyday you just assume people know what dividers are and stuff.. let us know if you have any more questions
 
Thanks for the quick reponse EvilCloudStrife. Isn't there another way to overclock my cpu besides using a ram divider or simply overclocking my ram along with my fsb? Couldn't I just increase the CPU multiplier from 11.0 to 12.0?

I guess 166 mhz increments isn't exactly small steps. Another question: will a ram divider only provide a ratio between my ram and the fsb, or will it keep my ram at a constant 400 mhz no matter how high the fsb goes?
 
Basically with an XP rig, if you run your ram at a different speed than your cpu by using the memory dividers you take a big performance hit, therefore, you should always strive to be running at 1:1 memory ratios. The memory ratios, by the way, will result in a constant relationship between your ram and cpu, not a fixed "XXX" speed for the ram regardless of how much you raise the cpu's speed. The ram speed would still increase when using the memory ratios, just not at a 1 to 1 relationship.

With that in mind, you are left with either upping the multiplier for an overclock or keeping the multi the same (or even lowering it) and upping the FSB. An XP rig running at any given speed will perform much better with a lower multi and a higher fsb than the alternative option of a lower fsb and a higher multi...220 x10 is better than 200 x 11, even though under both alternatives the cpu speed is the same 2.2GHz).

Working within that basic premise, the ideal approach would be to gradually increase your fsb, possibly requiring you to relax your memory timings and/or increase voltage along the way to remain stable (voltage increases may be required of the ram, the cpu and the northbridge, as well). The only way to know the optimimum settings for your particular system would be through testing with benchmarks as you go through your tweaking until you find the combination that yields the best benchmark results (SuperPi, 3DMarks series, etc) which should translate to better real world performance.


I have always found the following articles to be very informative.

Memory Basics -
http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=320351

Overclocking XPs -
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Guides/OCguide/

Good luck and I hope some of this helps.
 
well if you have the multiplyer unlocked, yeah man! do that. that wont overclock the ram at all if you dont touch the fsb. but i thought the multiplayer was locked unless you got a rare unlocked chip or a sample from AMD
 
Thanks for the quality response reefa. yes strife my motherboard is unlocked, i can only safely overclock by using the cpu multiplier.
 
Just because you have to option to change the multi doesnt mean you can do it. He is refering to the processor multiplier being locked not the motherboard. Im not sure which ones are unlocked but i have a mobile barton " im still behind times" and they were all unlocked to my knowledge.

I dont understand why you wouldnt want to OC your ram because thats where we get our power , we lower the multi and crank the fsb.

I really dont know how to explain things to you because you seem a little confused in your post. All I can say is read alot and ask questions as you come to them and good luck on your overclock.

One way to check your multiplier is to lower it one digit and see if it changes your clock speed.
 
NEWROOSTER said:
Just because you have to option to change the multi doesnt mean you can do it. He is refering to the processor multiplier being locked not the motherboard. Im not sure which ones are unlocked but i have a mobile barton " im still behind times" and they were all unlocked to my knowledge.

Actually, only up until late 2003 were the Bartons unlocked. There is a sticky in the AMD CPU section with the various dates after which they were all locked...it seems that it varied depending on the chip. I believe that the 2500s were the first to be "Super Locked".

All of the post 2003 (week 43 or so) XPs, other than the Mobiles, are now locked.
 
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