Memory Divider Question

Are there any negatives to dividing your RAM to 133Mhz in order to get your FSB higher? My RAM sucks and usually hits a wall at 215Mhz. I already have my voltage to the limit of what I consider safe. Thanks in advance for any answers on this issue.

Other than lower bandwidth, which you can sometimes negate by tightening the timings, there isn't much. If it is stopping you from achieving a higher CPU clock, then definitely use a divider.

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Thanks for the quick response. I guess I will get my FSB where I want it, then see if I can tighten the timings. I am n00b, but I am thoroughly enjoying this whole OCing thing. My wife calls me a geek. I told her people tune their cars, why can't I hotrod my PC? She didn't respond. I think I won that one...well, I until I need money for more parts.

Just make sure that you get enough of an increase from the increased CPU overclock to justify lowering the bandwidth on memory. Most times, it will work out but you do need to test and ensure that you aren't losing performance.

I have pretty much hit the wall at 240. My RAM is really showing its inferiority to overclock. I tried dividing to 133 and setting FSB multiplier to 9x to get a faster FSB, didn't help. It also fails in P95 with it bumped to 245x10. Would get hardware failure messages in both scenarios. So my next question is, if I loosen my timings, will I see a significant loss in performance. I do about 80% gaming and 20% design work on my rig. I worry that jumping to a 3 CAS will affect my gaming performance. Is this true? Or won't I notice a difference. I like to be one the first players in maps in DoD:S, and I was told the latency of your RAM plays a factor in this. Thanks.

increasing timings always lowers performance. Again, you have to see how much extra CPU mhz you get to offset the increase in memory latency. I'd love to give you a clear answer but I can't. Situations are always different.

Thanks. Loosening timings did not help anyways. I got it to 2500Mhz (250x10 1.64v). XP boots fine, but P95 had errors. Plus, my temps were much too high for my safety index. I am just going to have to eventually buy better memory if I want to push my machine. Thanks again for your help.