PC100 vs PC33 Memory Speed (Dell Inspiron 3800)

Hi,

I am looking at upgrading the RAM in an old laptop (for my kid). It is a Dell 3800 Inspiron notebook.

On the Dell site, it states the following specs:

External bus frequency 100 MHz
AGP bus 133 MHz
Memory clock speed 100 MHz
Memory access time CL2 or CL3

I have been told by a number of stores / sites, eBay, etc... that I can use PC133 memory in this computer. I even checked the www.crucial.com site (which is suppose to be fairly reliant) and it says that PC133 memory is compatible with the Dell Inspiron 3800.

Fine, but why does it say the Memory clock speed is only 100 MHz?

More to the point is, what speed will the memory actually function at. It's fine to say that PC133 memory will work, but if it only operates at 100 MHz than why bother?

The PC133 memory is double the cost of the PC100 -- so if there is not going to be any speed benefit, I don't want to pay the extra cost.

I realize that I haven't really asked anything yet, unless someone actually knows the specific answer.

So, I have a couple of questions:

1. Is there anyway to tell what speed the computers memory bus will actually operate at? Is it the same as the frontside bus, AGP bus, etc....

2. Is there any reliable software out there that will actually benchmark the speed of the memory in actual use? I know some programs will just read the BIOS or registers and simply report back what they find -- I want to be able to actually measure, real-time the speed.

It would be great if it could actually tell me the speed in MHz, but I don't know if that is actually possible. If I could at least get it to spit out a number, that is real-time sensitive, that would be good.

The worst case scenario is that I buy 1 SODIMM at PC133 and compare it to the PC100 currently in the machine and see if there is in fact any speed difference.

Which of course brings up another question, one that I should have probably started out with. Is there any actual real noticable speed difference between PC133 and PC100 memory.

I know that it operates 1/3 faster (approx), but at lot of time the numbers just don't add up to anything noticable in the end.

Thanks so much

idk, how much are you willing to spend, it may be better to get him a netbook, they are cheap and would probably be quite a bit faster than that laptop

i recommend ASUS eee pc, here's a few
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] rchInDesc=