PC2700 DDR Ram ??

Hi,

I'm not that familiar with DDR and had a question. I was contemplating buying the Abit KR7A-133 RAID mobo and was looking at Crucial PC2100 DDR RAM as my choice. However, now I keep hearing about PC2700 DDR and wondered about that. Will this Speed of DDR work in the Abit KR7A-133 mobo (KT266A chipset), or does it have to be the newer KT333 chipset based boards that support DDR 333?? If the mobo has to be based on the KT333 chipset to take advantage of DDR PC2700 can you recommend a good board based on this chipset?? Also, is it really worth buying this chipset given that its so new and will probably mature (newer revs of the boards) greatly in next few months? The question: To go with KT266A or KT333.

Thanks for any insight..

XiveX

as my understanding goes you will need a mobo that supports ddr333 to use it, and even if it still worked but at ddr266 standards, it would be pointless...

I havent noticed many ddr333 at cl-2, but make sure you get em cos apparently ddr333 cl-2.5 aint as good as ddr266 cl-2...

if im wrong please correct me so I learn something

The KT333 chipset will take advantage of the 333MHz bus speed the memory is rated for. Using it in a KT266A chipset will have it default to PC2100 speeds.

However, the KT266A chipset is best known for its excellent overclocking abilities and it really what made PC2700 memory popular in the first place. I have two boards (Shuttle AK31 and EPoX 8KHA+) that run at 166MHz, meaning the memory is running at PC2700 speeds. The KT266A overclocked to this speed gets better bandwidth than does the KT333 at the moment. It's not guaranteed that any KT266A board will run this for you though.

yeah don't forget most of those kt266a boards have had a handfull of BIOS updates too...

Yes PC2700/DDR333 or even the newer PC3000/DDR400 will work on the KT266A chipset with no problem or a better way of saying it would be that it's an advantage to have them since they give you a higher possibility to O/C your FSB. Even if your MoBo can't make use of all the available bandwidth that the ram can give you should be able to run the more agressive memory timings to maximize whatever FSB your running.

The lack of performance from the KT333 chipset compared to the KT266A the way I see it is that the KT266A does not have the proper divisor for the PCI & AGP to keep them in spec & that is part of the performance increase. The KT333 has the proper divisors so you will need to go a lot higher than DDR333 to match the bandwidth overspec that you can achieve with the older MoBo. I could be wrong about this but I think I'm talking with a little bit of sense today.

If you have DDR333 CAS2.5 then it should be no problem running DDR266 CAS2 but the other way around isnt as simple.

BIOS flashing is a part of finding the best set up. Just be careful when doing it.

Check out these threads 2 boards, same memory!

Epox8k3a KT333 (benchmark)
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,2826622~root=ocusa~mode=flat


Abit Kr7a KT266A (benchmark)
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,2857041~root=ocusa~mode=flat


Abit Wins!

Actually, I just finished posting a question about this very fact. If any of you could answer it for me (re: OCing the FSB on a Asus A7V333 mobo with XP 2100+ from 133 to 166, but simulaneously lowering the clock multiplier from 13.0 to 10.5 to keep heat down), I would really appreciate it!!!

It here: http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=77073

Thanks!~

Geron said:

Abit Wins!

Click to expand...

For now, but I think I would keep an eye on it in the near future.