I bought 2 sticks of Kingston HyperX PC4000 memory yesterday (I'm not gonna be able to buy anything else for like a year now!). However, my motherboard says it supports up to DDR400...PC4000 is DDR500. My mobo is Gigabyte GA-8S661FXM for anyone who cares.
In the BIOS, I can adjust my CPU/RAM frequencies, and in the list of RAM frequencies, there are numbers higher than 400, so I set my RAM at 498, which was the closest option to 500 that was available.
My question is this: is my RAM actually running at 500MHz, and how can I check for sure? When I start up, the computer says "DRAM frequency: 498", but I'm not sure if that is actually carrying over. In addition, if this is really running at 500MHz, can that potentially damage my motherboard, since it was "designed" for only 400?
Sorry for all the questions!! Thanks in advance for your help/advice!
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"...that's what a ship is, you know. It's not just a hull and a deck and sails--that's what a ship needs. But what a ship is...is freedom." --Capt. Jack Sparrow
I bought 2 sticks of Kingston HyperX PC4000 memory yesterday (I'm not gonna be able to buy anything else for like a year now!). However, my motherboard says it supports up to DDR400...PC4000 is DDR500. My mobo is Gigabyte GA-8S661FXM for anyone who cares.
In the BIOS, I can adjust my CPU/RAM frequencies, and in the list of RAM frequencies, there are numbers higher than 400, so I set my RAM at 498, which was the closest option to 500 that was available.
My question is this: is my RAM actually running at 500MHz, and how can I check for sure? When I start up, the computer says "DRAM frequency: 498", but I'm not sure if that is actually carrying over. In addition, if this is really running at 500MHz, can that potentially damage my motherboard, since it was "designed" for only 400?
Sorry for all the questions!! Thanks in advance for your help/advice!
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"...that's what a ship is, you know. It's not just a hull and a deck and sails--that's what a ship needs. But what a ship is...is freedom." --Capt. Jack Sparrow
@spike_the_punch
The SAFEST way to ensure that your RAM speed/timings are correct is to set your BIOS to auto-detect them on boot-up.
To do this, go into your BIOS Setup, set the Memory Frequency to "By SPD", then save the BIOS settings and reboot. Your RAM Frequency should then read CORRECTLY for whatever type of RAM you have installed.
Explanation: "By SPD" tells the BIOS to read the RAM manufacturer's recommended speed/timings DIRECTLY from the tiny 8-pin Serial Presence Detect (SPD) chips on your memory modules.
Hope this helps.
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Engineer's Golden Rule: If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Correct me if i'm wrong, but if the motherboard only supports a max of DDR400, wouldn't it set it to DDR400 regardless if the memory being used is DDR500?
What i'd do is set the ram speed to match your bus speed. So if your bus speed is 200, i'd set the ram speed at 200 (DDR400) as well. Running them asynchronously for example, the processor at 200, and the memory at 250 (DDR500) can actually lead to worse performance even though the memory is running faster.
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thanks for all your suggestions.....as H8Ball recommended, I let my BIOS auto-configure my bus speeds (I usually run OC'd--4x166MHz instead of 133), and that speed was what enabled me to choose 498MHz for my memory speed. When I let it auto-configure, it did set my RAM speed to 400, but I didn't notice much of difference...therefore, I'll probably just run it at 400 so as to minimize any potential risk of damaging components.
@Djiant: I have no idea what the restrictions are regarding RAM speed with this motherboard. It does say it only supports up to DDR400, but it then lets me go higher than that--much like others support up to 800MHz FSB, yet you can OC it to get more out of the components. So I have no idea whether or not I'm getting anything more out of it...if nothing spectacular has appeared when I next upgrade my mobo, I'll just be sure to get one that supports this memory and keep it then....
thanks again!!!
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"...that's what a ship is, you know. It's not just a hull and a deck and sails--that's what a ship needs. But what a ship is...is freedom." --Capt. Jack Sparrow
200/400/800 are all the same... depending...
200 is the REAL speed, 400 is the DDR speed or "dual punped" (for AMD processors) and 800 is quad pumped. (Intel) Its really 200x4.
With the exception of older Intel P4's, in which 400 was really 100 quad pumped.
-ABIT NF7-S (nForce2)
-Mobile Barton 2600+@2.3GHz
-Radeon 9800 Pro @ 420/380
-2x512MB Corsair XMS @ 2-2-2-11
-Audigy2 Platinum
Some of the newer mobos let you run the memory async above ddr400. I put together a machine recently for a friend with the asus p4p800 se and it let me set memory to DDR500. Sure enough, using CPUID the memory clock was at 250MHz but like jabroni said you wont get any gain and may reduce it. The fsb is limiting the bandwidth anyway and if you are async between fsb/mem the cpu has to use some waitstates.
I did tons of benches out of curiousity with mem at 400 and then at 500. I never saw an improvement at the 500 memory speed.