Hi guys, need some noob advice.

My friend just gave me an AM2 X2 3800 Dual Core CPU.

I'm currently running an AM2 3500+ Single Core with a stick of 1Gb DDR2 667MHz Patriot RAM. The FSB of my motherboard is 1 GHz.

My motherboard does not support overclocking(I checked with MSI, !#@$% BIOS) so I run everything at stock speed.

I heard that it is ideal that the CPU:RAM ratio should be 1:1, but I cannot increase the FSB in any way.

Should I get another stick of 667MHz RAM to run dual channel? Or get one stick of 800MHz RAM(and remove the 667MHz RAM)?

Sorry for asking such a noob question =P

Yes get the other stick of 667 MHz and run dual channel assuming your MB supports it.

A MSI board tthat does not give OC-in options :?: :!: Check it again, otherwise, there's the cool ClockGen, to OC directly from windows

I don't think a MSI; ASUS cheap boards are really crap and the newest crap does not even have overclocking options. I am sitting on one of those crappy motherboards; the A8V-MX and even if I pushed it's HTT clock to 250MHz on an IDE HDD, my new SATA HD gets locked @ only 225 by the stupid controller :x .

MSI K9NGM-L

Other than the lack of overclocking options(I emailed MSI for this), it is actually a fairly decent board.

So should I buy another stick of 667MHz and run dual channel? or replace my RAM with a single stick 800MHz?

Budget only allows for 1 stick of RAM.

Which OS are you running? If it's XP, then i'd get another 1GB of your existing ram, if it's Vista, then i'd "definitely" get another 1GB of your existing ram.

I'm running Win XP.

Don't really want to change to vista yet since my gfx may not be DX10 ready. . .

How do you calc the natural speed for the AM2's? For C2D it is quad-pumped 1066, so 266 ext = DDR2-533. For AM2 I think they are 5x pumped so 1000MT is 200MHz external, therefore needing DDR2-400. So is the suggestion to go to DDR2-800 to obtain a 2:1 memory ratio?

Jo

Then another 667 stick will be fine.