Asus Board / CPU 533 FSB / DDR400 clocked at DDR333 ?

[QZ]

I am looking at a P4P800S-X and a Celeron D 533MHz bus CPU.

I could go for DDR333, the most this CPU will support with 848 chipset, but
for the same price is DDR400. (Maybe one day I get a 800 FSB CPU, or more
likely get it to run at CAS2 instead of 2.5)

The manual says the BIOS has a setting for DDR speed instead of default SPD.

On Asus boards in general, does this downclocking of memory always work or
should I get DDR333?

Thanks,
QZ

 

[Paul]

I am looking at a P4P800S-X and a Celeron D 533MHz bus CPU.

I could go for DDR333, the most this CPU will support with 848 chipset, but
for the same price is DDR400. (Maybe one day I get a 800 FSB CPU, or more
likely get it to run at CAS2 instead of 2.5)

The manual says the BIOS has a setting for DDR speed instead of default SPD.

On Asus boards in general, does this downclocking of memory always work or
should I get DDR333?

Thanks,
QZ

The downloadable manual says the board has a "DRAM Frequency"
setting. At FSB533, the options are [333, 266, Auto]. You
should be able to buy DDR400 memory and set it to 333.

The only boards that have the problem you describe, are a
few microATX boards. These are the boards with three
PCI slots and dimensions of 9.6" x 9.6". Some of those
boards have virtually no DRAM settings in the BIOS at
all (the BIOS is "dumbed down", for use in businesses),
and if you plug a DDR400 stick in when it needs DDR333,
it does the wrong thing.

Download page - type in model name
http://support.asus.com.tw/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

CPU support page
http://support.asus.com.tw/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

If you buy DDR400 memory, I would not expect a problem.

Paul

 

[ñíñjà¤têç]

That will be a setting with the memory module you select. It's called
the "spd" timings and for the most part, name brand manufacturers will
allow 1 or 2 steps down in the spd settings.

Also, you will benefit from better timings if you select quality
memory at pc3200( DDR400) and run it at pc2700(DDR333).

ñíñjà¤têç

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[BigJIm]

I ran 3200 on a 533 fsb with no problems
I let spd set the timings

 

[Newz]

You can check whether the SPD of your memory modules is programmed to
provide better timings when run at speeds below spec. I have an old
P2B-F board that has a 100 MHz FSB - when running Kingston PC133
memory in this board, I noticed that the SPD had a separate table for
PC100 use that specified faster timings. Not every module behaves that
well though. In that case, you should force better timings by setting
them in the BIOS yourself.

Well programmed SPD's can be viewed with tools like CPU-Z,
www.cpu-z.com

G,
Friso