Processor to fast?

[MatTheMurdera]

I plan to OC a E6400 to 3.0Ghz @1500Mhz FSB(375 Proc mult X8), however I have 2GB of older DDR2 533 with timings of 3-3-3-8. Would my proc be to fast for the RAM to keep up? Will I have to replace or OC my RAM? I realy wouldnt want to OC my RAM to much if thats an option. Thanks.



System:
ASUS P5W DH DELUXE
PQI 2GB 533 3-3-3-8
Conroe E6400 when it comes
600W Kingwin modular PSU
Aqua Gate Mini water cooling

 

[Heyyou27]

You'll probably have to use a memory divider for 533MHz DDR2 to remain stable.

 

[NaDa]

You will just have to see. I have read in an article that most ddr2 533 and 667 can be clocked to 800. Ram is too expensive. You can always use a divider. If you overclock your ram it's a good idea to put a heat spreader and a fan on it. Yes, ram does get hot.
I have my ddr running at 250 (ddr500) and it gets really hot without the fan.

 

[MU_Engineer]

You will certainly have to use a memory divider or a LOT of voltage. Going from 266 -> 375 is a large, tough jump for RAM. I'd say set the divider at DDR2-400 and then go from there. Your RAM will run at its stock 266 MHz with a FSB of 355 MHz, so 355 -> 375 is a pretty little jump that will leave the RAM running at 281 MHz, a small jump that should be well tolerated, especially if you loosen the timings.

Or you could drop the $$$ for DDR2-800 and run it at whatever speed you like as you *still* have headroom with that 1.500 GHz FSB as the RAM can do a 1.600 GHz FSB at stock speed synchronous with the FSB. But a 1600 FSB might be a bit tough to reach as I have heard that beyond ~1400, things start to get hairy as it gets harder and harder to control the FSB.

 

[MatTheMurdera]

Its pretty stable, it can go up to 1680 max.

 

[MU_Engineer]

Hmm. That sounds good then. Does it pass Prime95 for 24 hours with a FSB that high?

 

[MatTheMurdera]

I havnt done that yet, but it works well with total 47 hours operation doing Seti@home, even with a netburst.

 

[MU_Engineer]

Okay, sounds stable enough to me then Intel should be able to push the Conroe pretty high then if your case is any indication.

 

[MatTheMurdera]

But anyway, back to my question! Will the RAM be to slow for the massive OC?

 

[lcandy]

It might start becoming a bottleneck? A 4MB cache version might help to alleviate that bottleneck, but it's something I will be finding out. I'm getting an E6600 with DDR667, and plan to overclock the FSB past 333MHz with the multiplier of 9. In fact, my eventual goal is 377Mhz to get a whole 1 Ghz out of the chip, minimum.

I couldn't afford DDR800 because I had reached the upper limit of my budget and then past it lol. So went with Corsair DDR2 Value Select as AnandTech said it was a very good performer when the ram was pushed, this was without heat spreaders.

Looks like we will both find out what happens when we try

 

[MatTheMurdera]

keep in touch, I need ur help!

 

[MU_Engineer]

Not if you set the divider at DDR2-400.

 

[MatTheMurdera]

Sweet n' simple, but if the RAM only moving about 4GB/s will it be saturated by how fast the processor can use the data?