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FSB1066, Which RAM??

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andy7t

Member
Joined
Dec 31, 2004
Hi,

Its been 3 years since I built a system, and back then it was fairly simple.
DDR RAM matched up nicely with the FSB on the CPUs (double for AMD, quad for Intel).

Now I've come to build a new PC and i'm lost!

I'm after an Intel Core2 1066FSB (not quite decided on model, but know 1066).
I can choose the motherboard, fine. Choose one with 1066 FSB.

But now RAM?????
There's loads of these new DDR2 modules and I just cannot find the one I need. From what i've read, it seems not to matter which one you have, but surely it does?
 
if your going to OC then id just get some decent 4-4-4-12 DDR2-800 adn it should get you pretty high OC.
 
Yeah. DDR2 800 would be fine. Corsair, G.Skill, OCZ... all those would be fine. I have CAS5 but CAS4 is faster. either would let you overclock like a bandit.
 
Brands aren't really an issue to me at the moment, I'm just trying to find out what type of RAM i need.

So is there not "a type" of RAM I need, or can I use pretty much any DDR2 RAM???
Theres surely got to be a "right" piece of RAM for a CPU?

Can someone explain how these new DDR2 speeds (not latency) relate?
 
1066=533MHz RAM 1333= 667MHz RAM

minimum

I agree withthe above though no less then good ddr800 if you arent getting good ddr2 800 then just get 667 as its the same exact thing most times.
 
I'd just get the ram I got, Ballistix 1066, you can't have too much ram bandwidth and you can always run a higher ram multiplier. DDR2 is so friggin cheap now anyways.
 
IMO, DDR2-800 is still the way to go the performance value ratio is just at a sweet spot. DDR2-1066 IMO is overkill right now. If you run your RAM much faster than FSB you will see only a slight improvement and not worth the extra cost over DDR2-800. For example if I run my memory at 667 vs 850 I only see a different of 0.3 seconds in super pi. There is also a review discussing this in more detailed in which they got about 3% improvement at most. I may dig it up for you later.

But also depends on what you plan to build. The future 6X50 processors seem to be overcloking well and hitting 3.8GHz-4GHz. The 6550 and 6750 with lower multipliers will probably need higher FSB and better memory for 1:1 ratio. But in any case any decent DDR2-800 memory should overclock enough to fill this gap.
 
I'm sorry, i'm a bit lost now.
What i've gathered:

The "correct" i.e. "stock" RAM to use with a Core 2 FSB 1066 is: PC4200 (533Mhz)?

Now, if I want to start overclocking, I need to put in a faster RAM (800Mhz?).
Most of the boards I was looking at don't yet seem to support 800Mhz RAM, and only support 533/667Mhz.
Can i still get 800Mhz RAM to fit in these boards and just run them as fast as the board can take (667mhz), as long as the CPU can take it?

I'm also assuming here all of the calculations are actually divided by 2?
So the actual speed is 266mhz +?
 
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