Tom's Hardware > Forum > Motherboards & Memory > General Motherboard > Can I Use 266 DDR Memory in a 333MHz MotherBoard?

Can I Use 266 DDR Memory in a 333MHz MotherBoard?

Forum Motherboards & Memory : General Motherboard - Can I Use 266 DDR Memory in a 333MHz MotherBoard?

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I want to upgrade my system with just a new processor and motherboard but i don't want to fork out for new memory ( i've got 2 GB of 266DDR) is it possible to use 266DDr in a 333 Board? If So what sort of performance problems will i get?

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Yes, it's perfectly possible on all motherboards I've seen. You might have to go into BIOS and set the CPU/RAM ratio to 5:4, or set RAM speed to 133Mhz, but it will work.

Obviously having asynchronous RAM & FSB is not the best for performance, but 2Gb is quite a lot of RAM to replace.

If it's good quality RAM, you might find it will overclock to the required 166Mhz if you simply increase RAM timings, but that's up to you.

(I have some Crucial DDR 266 RAM that Runs stably @175Mhz, albeit CAS3)

[EDIT]
Just in case no-one's mentioned this, buy an Nforce2 mobo for your new one!
[/EDIT]

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The preceding text is assembled from information stored in an unreliable organic storage medium. As such it may be innacurate, incomplete, or completely wrong :wink: Edited by ChipDeath on 10/02/03 10:54 AM.

Reply to ChipDeath

I agree with what the previous poster said.

Increase your timings and run the RAM at 1:1 if possible.

On my Barton with 200 MHZ FSB, I tried running my pc 2700 both at 5:4 (180 mhz) and 1:1 (200 mhz). I had to increase timings to 8-3-3-3, but I got a significant increase in pcmark2002.

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