amd question

it looks like 266MHz FSB boards don't support DDR ram.

is that true? at present, do we have to make a decision whether we want the DDR ram or the faster front bus speed?

or did i read this wrong?

peiter

If you don't overclock, try the ECS K7S5A for only $62 at cdr express. Or go with the Abit KG7-lite (no raid and only 2 ddr slots) for about $140 (pricewatch).

266 MHz FSB is the FSB of the processor, and the processor does work at that speed with the chipset. but the older chipsets that were made for the Athlon and Duron processors dint really connect to a similar DDR memory at the other end, but used standard PC100/PC133 SDRAM instead. So your Athlon or Duron doesnt really work at this FSB when used with SDRAM.

note here that SDR is not Single Data Rate as DDR is Double Data Rata (although you can really say it is!), its Synchronous Dynamic RAM.

later came the chipsets that supported the double speed memories, and then DDR speed was achieved throughout the system. Now the processor can really read that data at the speed it really does. it does not have to read at twice the speed and wait for half the time.

board supporting DDR RAM must have a chipset supporting the DDR RAM. most chipsets support both though the manufacturer might opt to keep either one out. boards like Asus A7A266 that use the ALi Magik chipset have slots for both DDR as well as SDRAM (the slots are different, SDRAM comes in a 168 pin strip while DDR comes in 184 pin one). the Asus A7M266 carries the AMD 760 chipset and does not support SDRAM at all.

chipsets that support DDR RAM are AMD 760, ALi Magik, VIA KT266, SiS735, and the upcoming nVidia nForce.

generally the board supporting DDR RAM are usually suffixed with "266"

girish

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