Memory speed on Intel D865GBF MB with Celeron 400MHz bus

[news1.telia.com]

Hi all!

I am putting together a low-budget upgrade for a friend, and I am a bit
confused about what memory the Intel D865GBF motherboard supports together
with a Celeron 2.4GHz/400MHz bus processor. According to documentation I
have found DDR400 is _only_supported with 800 FSB, and DDR333 supported with
533 and 800 FSB. It seems like DDR266 is the only choice if you want to run
a processor with 400 FSB. Is this correct? This would be too bad since
upgrading the processor would also require upgrading the RAM.

//Thomas

 

[somebody]

Hi all!

I am putting together a low-budget upgrade for a friend, and I am a bit
confused about what memory the Intel D865GBF motherboard supports together
with a Celeron 2.4GHz/400MHz bus processor. According to documentation I
have found DDR400 is _only_supported with 800 FSB, and DDR333 supported with
533 and 800 FSB. It seems like DDR266 is the only choice if you want to run
a processor with 400 FSB. Is this correct? This would be too bad since
upgrading the processor would also require upgrading the RAM.

//Thomas

While I don't know the options available on D865GBF, it's normally
possible to run PC3200 at both DDR333 and DDR266 as well as DDR400. I
usually buy faster memory than I can fully use, because often price
difference is negligible. And faster ram is more flexible in many
ways. For more aggressive settings, overclocking, using in a different
PC etc.

Well, well, I don't want to be rude or insensitive here, but the
general plan seems a bit illadviced to me.

That's a $95 mobo and a $73 cpu. It's pretty much the slowest cpu
possible to buy at all, by the way. "Upgrade"? Are you sure it even
is? If he's had something like a PIII or old style Celeron at around
1GHz, that 2.4Celeron is not going to make your friend happy.
It's also a rather expensive cpu. The slowest available AMD cpu,
1.6GHz Duron for example, is only $39. And it will still dance in
circles around that Celeron, even taking coffee breaks and an
afternoon nap.

just for an initial jolt:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1927&p=4

article starts at:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1927&p=2

Mobo doesn't look cheap to me either, but ok, ok, not my business...

But what's the plan? A retail 2.4GHz P4C can be had for $166. That's
$93 difference. What cpu, at least as fast as a 2.4P4C, for socket
478, will you be able to buy for $93 in a future?
Excuse me, but that will have to be yet another Celeron. And it would
have to be 6-7GHz to match a P4C. That's not going to happen soon, and
NOT on the socket 478.
93 bucks for a socket that Intel is abandoning? And for running a
_Celeron_ ? Finance a 2.8GHz P4C from the start instead! It's the best
offering from Intel. That's one of my advices.

My suggestion? - AMD XP2000 to XP2400 and cheap EPoX , Shuttle or
Soltec mobo. Saves a lot of money and twice the performance.

ancra

 

[Thomas]

Hi and thanks for your opinions, I appreciate them a lot. Actually it _is_
an upgrade. The guy is using an P2-366 right now... ;-)
Actually, the only reason that I chose Intel gear was that he is running a
lot of audio software, and that audio software tends to be optimized for
SSE2 instructions, but not for AMD's "whatever-they-call-it-nowadays"
(3DNow-something).

But looking at it, I can actually get an Athlon XP 2500+/333 Barton system
with an EPoX EP-8RDA3i nforce2 Ultra400 board for less money than the
Celeron 2.4Ghz variant, and I actually think that I will go the AMD way
instead...

Regards!
//Thomas