Hi, im going to be building a new rig soon and i want 2 use my old ram and overclock. The old ram is crucial 533 mhz and i will be getting a quad core (when the prices drop)... ive been looking around and alot of motherboards don't support 533mhz. Am i understanding this right or can any ddr2 board support any ddr2 ram (yes yes i am a newbie to all of this!!).

Well anyway could you spec me a motherboard for below £100... Thanks

Unless you get an allendale C2D (E4300, E4400) you won't be able to overclock with your ram @533. You could overclock your ram @ 667 but you don't know if it can go there. Of course you can use it with any mobo that supports DDR2. But if you are going to get a quad core in july, buy the mobo then and not now. Prices keep falling, new products are announced as we speak. Maybe you will find out that you can easily fit 2Gigs of DDR2 800 in your budget by then...

yea thats wot im thinking, but i have 4 gigs of 533 in my old comp wich is going 2 b used as a spare computer... seems like such a waste! is there much of an improvment on performance with the 800 ram? As in is it worth the extra £70-£100 ill be spending to get ram @800...

I wont be buying untill quad core comes down in price...

but i could use the ram @ 533 with a quad core... and overclock the cpu but not the ram?

thanks

I don't remember if the newer quads will be 1066FSB or 1333. In any case, using a i965 mobo you will not be able to overclock just your cpu, because thelowest ratio is 1:1 i.e. you cannot raise the FSB without raising your memory's speed accordingly. The Nvidia chipsets (650, 680) have different settings and i think you could do that. In my opinion, you should sell your older memory, or at least 2 gigs of it and get 2gigs of DDR2 800. Of course you can try to overclock it. If the ram has no heat spreaders, see if it has the famous Micron D9G chips on it. If it does and the modules are double sided then you have many more possibilities of a successful ram overclocking.