P4 3.4ghz Prescott + PC 5400 DDR2

Hi, I'm new here, need an advice

I'm currently on Intel P4 3.4ghz Prescott (LGA775 550),
with PC5400 DDR2 memory.. yes its a 667 mhz monster (I just realized, after doing researches online, that it wont make such a difference unless going 333 fsb which is kinda impossible), the reason i got the PC5400 is that it was only $10 more than the 4300 (which has better timings 3-3-3-8 )
anyways, back to the point. the current frequency for the ram is 267mhz (technically 267 * 2 = 533mhz since its a DDR, duh) and timings of (4-4-4-12 as SPD reports )
and I'm running the cpu at stock speed of 3400mhz (200*17)
with a FSB:RAM ratio of 3:4
which is not that bad since my fsb is quad-pumbed and it wont make much loss in performance as would AMDs.
my current idle temp is 43c and load is 60c on the stock hsf.. however, I'm planning on gettiing the thermalright XP-120 heatsink with a 83cfm Panaflo fan..
my mobo is GigaByte 8I915P Duo..
I'm wondering how much I can push my 3.4ghz with this hsf.. I'm mainly going to do air cooling.. is the xp-120 my best bet?

plus, while increasing my fsb, the PCI/AGP frequency (as I assume) consequently increases past 33mhz.. which will eventually damage my SATA hdd and other stuff (as I assume too).. so how can I stop it from increasing? i looked everywhere at my bios and I couldnt find such option.. is there a specific program to do so?

another concern is, since my current ram timings are 4-4-4-12 , is it possible to lower them to something like 3-3-3-8 or less for the fact that I'm not going to go past the 267 current frequency (having put in mind that its capable of doing 333mhz)? if so, then whats a good prog to do so as I didnt find that option in my bios..

please correct me if I'm wrong on somethin,
thanks in advance

Welcome! You provided just about all the required info... except what motherboard you are using.

If it's an overclockable mobo, then there should be a way to lock the PCI bus to 33 MHz. My Abit mobo has a BIOS setting to do this and I know Asus does also.

If you are using DDR2 RAM, then there is probably no AGP bus, but rather a PCI-E slot for the vid card.

After you get better cooling, if you can clock at least 224 FSB (3.8 gig), then at the 3:4 memory ratio that's about DDR2-600, so you'll be making more use of your high speed RAM than maybe you originally thought. It "might" be possible that your RAM can use tighter timings. Give it a little more voltage (like 1.9v) and try lowering the timings one at a time and see what happens.

hi batboy, thanks for the fast reply
actually i mentioned my mobo "my mobo is GigaByte 8I915P Duo" which has a G.E.A.R. slot which can be used as an AGP slot for my nVidia GF4 4600 Ti card.. until 1 hour ago I was not able to lock the PCI/AGP frequency to 33.. because there was actually no option to do so in the bios! and the EasyTune5 (from gigabyte) program constantly increases the frequency of 33 when upping the fsb..
so i figured why not update my bios.. their website sucks anyways so i ended up with clearing my cmos a couple few times ,
anyways.. i'm glad that brought some results.. now in the new bios there is an option which lets me lock the PCI-e and not relating it to cpu/memory frequency..and with that same program (EasyTune5) whenever i upp my fsb it wont increase the mobo frequency..
However, I'm afraid this only involves the PCI-e bus and not the AGP, (since my grafix card is using the AGP slot) and the result of which is making my grafix card run out of spec..

although I upgraded my bios to the latest version.. I still can not see an option where I can tighten my ram timings.. any suggestions?

Btw, where about in kansas are you from?

Ah, I see now that you did mention the mobo model. Sorry, I overlooked it. Ok, that Gigabyte model does have an AGP slot, but the i915 chipset don't have an AGP bus, so it really just runs off the PCI bus. If you are not a gamer, then that won't matter much (PCI bus is slower and has less bandwidth than a true AGP bus). I personally have never used that mobo, so I don't know what BIOS settings it has, but I vaguely remember perhaps a hiddened advanced BIOS menu option or something? Maybe do some research about that.

I work in Topeka and live about 40 miles away out in the middle of nowhere.

actually, Im pretty sure i got the pci frequency locked from the bios.. but right now i'm wondering where I can tighten my ram timings since i couldnt find them anywhere in the bios.. :s

btw, I live about 20mins away from topeka, in lawrence particularly.. KU rocks lol ;P

Here is a partial quote that I found elsewhere on the forum.

Ross said:

With that in mind, I was looking at mobos that supply both 184 and 240 mem slots for DDR or DDR2. The Gigabyte 8I915P Duo Pro fits my bill perfectly and I'd have it on the way already except I did read somewhere that BIOS has neither latency settings or PCI-e lock, BUT I saw another blib about a hidden BIOS menu (CTRL+F1) with at least latency control (didn't see any PCI-e lock, just voltage control).

Click to expand...

Also check out this article (scroll down to the BIOS section).

http://www.rbmods.com/Articles/Gigabyte/GA-8I915P_Duo_Pro/4.php

indeed helps alot man.. thanks!
I'll try this and see what happens

Yay, someone quoted me

Actually, I ended up buying just a DDR1 mobo on Monday (ASUS P5GD1...which should be here today), but I found out yesterday even though it has a PCI-E lock as noted by others, the lock supposedly does not work at all...or very well on the non "-E" 775 ASUS mobos.

If xRo0T can please post back whether or not that the mem options exist in the Gigabyte BIOS (now that we know it has a PCI-E lock for sure), I would appreciate it. If the Asus lock does not work or works poorly, I am going to RMA the mobo and the Gigabyte will be back in contention if the mem options are there. I really can't see why they wouldn't be, but I dunno why Gigabyte would make them "hidden"?

Hi Ross,
yes actually when you ctrl+f1 in the mobo, u get a few new "advanced" options that were not available before, you could change the ram timings and lock the PCI freq. (which is pretty much everything you need)
you can increase the vdimm to 0.1+ and 0.2+ and 0.3+ being max, (which is enough as I suppose)
you can also change the multiplyer from high to low or vice versa (17x or 14x in my case)

tell me if you have any further question about this mobo , =] i can take screenies if u want

Thanks for getting me the info. I guess the next most important question is whether or not the PCI-E lock actually works on that board. I got my Asus yesterday and even though it has the lock, the PCI-E floats anyway just like everyone says. At 240FSB, it's already up to 110MHz whether I set it on Auto or even 90 in BIOS

Apparently it was a problem on the 915 chipsets for Asus and Abit, but I don't know about "less used" mobos. The lock has been confirmed to be fixed on 925XE Asus boards, but I was trying to avoid a $175+ mobo & $225+ for DDR2 sticks.

BTW, I didn't see any up there specifically for the Gigabyte, but I am using the one for my mobo from here to monitor the PCI-E speed: http://www13.plala.or.jp/setfsb/ I haven't tried using it to "set" the speed, but I guess I should give it a shot before I spend the $$ on a new mobo given I've only had this one for < 24 hours...lol.

Thanks again for the info...

hi, as far as i'm concerned, the pci-e lock on my board didnt float ever with me ,
if you have ever heard of a software called (EasyTune5) which is made for the gigabyte mobos.. before updating my bios, that program always automatically increased the pci-e/agp frequency on my board whenever i upp the fsb from the program.. but after disabling that from the bios (after updating it).. the program ran just fine without increasing the pci-e frequency..
furthermore, I'm currently running a dvd+rw and another cd-rom with a 200gb SATA hdd and an additional ATA133 80gb hard drive with nVidia GF4 ti 4600..
with an fsb of 251x14 (low multip).. so with that high fsb, if my pci-e had ever floated.. my hdd's would be long dead..(SATA's are so damn sensitive to being put out of spec by board freq)
so i doubt that it has a floating prob or anything..

hope this helps, =]