266 DDR clock speed with P4 1.80a (Northwood)

[Guy Dallaire]

I must admit that I'm a little confused....

I bought a brand new motherboard yesterday (DFI PS83BL) and along with it,
PC3200/DDR400 RAM. I specified to the vendor that I wanted upgradealbility.

The processor is a pentium 4 1.80a "northwood". On the processor box, it
says, 400mhz FSB.

I taught that my memory would run at 400 Mhz, it is only running at 266 Mhz.

Is this normal ?

In the BIOS, the only options I have are 266 or "Auto"

Why is my RAM running at a multiple of 133, and my CPU at a multiple of 100
?

What would I have to du to get the memory to run at 400 Mhz ? Upgrade the
CPU ?

 

[kony]

I must admit that I'm a little confused....

I bought a brand new motherboard yesterday (DFI PS83BL) and along with it,
PC3200/DDR400 RAM. I specified to the vendor that I wanted upgradealbility.

The processor is a pentium 4 1.80a "northwood". On the processor box, it
says, 400mhz FSB.

I taught that my memory would run at 400 Mhz, it is only running at 266 Mhz.

Is this normal ?

In the BIOS, the only options I have are 266 or "Auto"

Why is my RAM running at a multiple of 133, and my CPU at a multiple of 100
?

What would I have to du to get the memory to run at 400 Mhz ? Upgrade the
CPU ?

A "400MHz FSB" on the particular P4 CPU you have is actually running a
quad-pumped (4X) multiplier clock signal. So with that clock signal
being 100MHz, the memory will be either synchronous (same speed)
100MHz, or asynchronous "+33" mode, at 133MHz.

If you were just looking to sacrifice performance for the sake of
low-cost, it'll do, but most people would buy a faster CPU, with
higher FSB rate for that board, to build a new system today, like a
P4 2.4GHz w/800MHz (200Mhz clock rate) FSB, which would justify the
higher price paid for the PC3200 memory.

You ought to see if you can exchange/return the CPU, is what i'd do.


Dave

 

[Guy Dallaire]

Ok thanks, I'll try to get my hand on a faster processor, but that's 100$
more :-(

 

[kony]

Ok thanks, I'll try to get my hand on a faster processor, but that's 100$
more :-(

A 2.4GHz Celeron would be as fast as the 1.9GHz, maybe faster
depending on the task. The steep price increase of Intel's offerings
is a good reason why many people choose AMD.


Dave

 

[DaveW]

You'd need to upgrade the CPU to an 800MHz FSB.

 

[Guy Dallaire]

I use the PC mostly to play games, that's why I did not chose the celeron.