533 Fsb

I have a new MoBo that supports up to 533 FSB or 400 FSB with HT. I can get a good deal on HT P4 with an 800 FSB.

Will this work? I mean, will the P4 go down to 533 FSB?


Here are the tech specs:
MoBo: Gigabyte 8PE800 (845PE Intel chipset)
Target CPU: HT P4 2.80 with 800 FSB


My guess is that it wont run at 800 FSB because the MoBo only supports 533 FSB but if it runs at 533 FSB that is fine with me.

TIA

First off, the fsb's here are 133 and 200. Because they are quad pumped (meaning they transfer four times per clock cycle) the are called by Intel 533 and 800 MHz fsb's but in reality they are 133 and 200MHz.

Your 845PE board was designed to run 133/533fsb, but as i845 was a tremendous overclocker good designs based on this chipset were touted as capbale of running the 200/800fsb that the "c" series P4's use. But 200MHz is really stretching it, and may not materialize in all cases. But you should be able to get close.

If you were to only achieve 133/533fsb, a 2.8c would only be running at 1862MHz, quite the waste. But you should be able to get 190-200fsb with the 845pe board, getting you to the stock 2.8GHz clock, or very close to it.

My advice? Get the C chip is you want, and try it on your current board. But understand you really have to invest in a good 865pe or 875 chipset board to get the good out of the cpu. 2800 is as fast as you'll get it going on that board, and 2800 on that board is slower than 2800 on one of the newer dual channel chipsets.

Bear in mind that you will need a matched pair of great quality PC3200+ memory modules to OC the 865pe or 875 board once you get it.

Thanks for the detailed info and good advice, Larva.

Down here in Mexico it is hard to get good PC components because the market is very cash strapped. What sells around here is all the cheap stuff and that is what the stores have in stock.

A HT P4 @ 3.06 Ghz with a 533 FSB goes for 449.81 plus 15% tax. A HT P4 @ 2.80 Ghz with a 800 FSB goes for 314.45 plus the "luxury" tax. I was hoping to get the cheaper 800 FSB P4 and run it with a 533 FSB. But as you point out in your previous post, Im just gonna make my life more complicated with not much if any gains.

BTW, good RAM is also extremely hard to come by, not reliable at all because it is the cheapest available on the market (even the DDR, forget about brand names like corsair or crucial), so this is another factor, as you pointed out, to watch out for.

I guess Im gonna hafta save up somore for the 533 FSB chip which is what the MoBo specifies.

Thanks again!

I think the latest B (133fsb) chips are also D1 stepping, and overclock very well.

If you get something like the 2.4B, it should be possible to get to more than 3Ghz.

You don't have HT, but this costs a lot less than either the 3.06 or 2.8C.

Might be worth considering.

Thanks Shiyan, will look into this also.