Tom's Hardware > Forum > Motherboards & Memory > General Motherboard > Question on CPU, Memory, and FSB Speed
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malachiv   01-31-2008 at 09:44:04 PM

I just a quick question. When I put together my current PC, I made sure the the CPU, memory and FSB speeds matched up, because somewhere I read that this helped reach optimal perfomance. Does that still hold true with the current technology, or does it not matter anymore?

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cjp3   02-06-2008 at 02:04:59 PM
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Sure, the components should match each other. It makes no sense to buy 800 MHz RAM with a quad-core CPU that supports 1333 MHz, and vice versa, as the whole system will run at the slower speed.

And the choice of your mainboard of course restricts you in which options will work at all.

Price is an issue as well. Unless you have a few millions to spare, and don't worry whether you spend €1000 or €4000, having the newest stuff means you're paying many times more than using yesterdays stuff (which will run current games just as fine). Compare €100 for a nice dual-core CPU with €1000 for the hottest quad-core CPU (the "quad" means squat with current games).

So, make sure the 3 parts you buy match together in the "price range" as well. I.e., running a €1000 quad-core CPU in a €59,- board sounds somewhat fishy, and running a €39,- Celeron in a €300 Asus Striker II Formula would be weird as well.

It's all a different story if you are upgrading; then it may make sense to upgrade single parts at a time, and have "incompatible" items for a while (until you upgrade the other stuff as well).

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deuce271   02-06-2008 at 02:49:08 PM
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You really didn't answer his question.


I have the Q6600 with a 1066 FSB. That being said I have my Q6600 overclocked to 3.2Ghz and I OC'd the FSB from 267 or 333 to 400. If your FSB is 400Mhz, then a 1:1 ratio would be obtained using DDR2 memory at 800Mhz.

If I were running my Q6600 at 333 (Not OC'd), then DDR2 667Mhz would be fine, anything faster would underclock itself.


To answer your question, it is still believed the 1:1 ratio you speak of is still believed to be the most optimal for the performance of your computer. Though benchmarks showing this are not readily available.

------------------------------ Antec Nine Hundred, Gigabyte P35-DS3R, Intel Q6600 @ 3.2 Ghz, Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme, eVGA 8800GT 512MB, G-Skill 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2-800 4-4-4-10, Seasonic S12 ATX 650W, Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA, 26" LCD Monitor (1900x1200), Windows XP Pr
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zenmaster   02-06-2008 at 03:51:45 PM
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malachiv wrote :

I just a quick question. When I put together my current PC, I made sure the the CPU, memory and FSB speeds matched up, because somewhere I read that this helped reach optimal perfomance. Does that still hold true with the current technology, or does it not matter anymore?



It does not really matter.
Post a budget, an idea of what you want to do with your system and some folks will give you an idea of what to grab.

------------------------------ If its good in theory but not in practice,
its not good theory.
 Reply to zenmaster
Smoked Turkey   02-06-2008 at 06:34:20 PM
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+1 on deuce271

cjp3 wrote :

Sure, the components should match each other. It makes no sense to buy 800 MHz RAM with a quad-core CPU that supports 1333 MHz, and vice versa, as the whole system will run at the slower speed.



1333 is based off the 333 FSB with a multiplier. Memory will be 333 @ DDR = 667


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