While many people expected the 925XE to support DDR2-667 memory, Intel has stuck to DDR2-533. Faster memory would clearly have sped up the whole system - please see the benchmark section for details - but two reasons speak against early deployment of this technology. First, DDR2-667 is still much more expensive than DDR2-533. Second, running a 333 MHz memory interface clock for DDR2-667 would require operating the RAM asynchronously, something that Intel has always tried to avoid.
Despite Intel’s decision, there is in fact a way to operate DDR2 memory far beyond DDR2-533 specs. By simply selecting the memory ratio that is required to match DDR2-533 when running FSB800, the memory will automatically run at DDR2-711 when the FSB is increased to FSB1066. In other words, when selecting the 1 to 1.33 ratio you would use to run DDR2-533 on FSB800, when you move to the 266 MHz FSB of FSB1066, you will be running the memory bus at 266 * 1.33 = 355.6 MHz, which means DDR2-711.
While you won’t be able to operate DDR2-533 modules highly overclocked at DDR2-711, any branded DDR2-667 should be able to reach that speed easily. So far, we’ve tried modules from Corsair, Crucial and GeIL and easily hit the desired speeds with tolerant timings.
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Patrick Schmid was the editor-in-chief for Tom's Hardware from 2005 to 2006. He wrote numerous articles on a wide range of hardware topics, including storage, CPUs, and system builds.
