What am I missing with the Core 2 Duo FSB

JBJB Carlsbad, CA
edited November 2006 in Hardware
Hey guys,

I am also looking at switching over to Intel land (:eek2:) but I am a bit perplexed about how their FSB works.

What I understand: Core 2 Duo runs at 266 Mhz FSB that is running at "Quad Data Rate".

Does a stock Core 2 Duo use DDR2-533 (266 x 2) or DDR2-1066 (266 x 4)? Simple enough question I hope :p

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    A stock Core 2 Duo's memory frequency is DDR2-533.
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    but, (there is always one right?) you can select different memory ratios. If you look in a review at anandtech.com you will see the various memory speed/ratio combinations listed. There are some performance improvements by running faster than 533.
    Look at this from today
    http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/memory/ddr2/2006/gskill-ddr2-800/performance.html
  • lewicronlewicron Glasgow
    edited November 2006
    Wow, that's quite an eye opener. I'm planning to upgrade to a Core 2 system early next year and had been budgeting for some high performance RAM (probably 800Mhz), but seeing that table has made me think twice. Seeing as the performance difference between 400 DDR2 and 800 DDR2 according to that table is negligable, what would the advantage buying much faster RAM? Would it provide more headroom for overclocking?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    Significantly more headroom for overclocking. C2Ds are, in many ways, like Athlon XPs. Very short processor pipelines, very <i>wide</i> pipelines, no real use for dividers or anything fancy. C2s like 1:1 dividers; buy good RAM and a good board, and push the FSB until it doesn't go any more.
  • lewicronlewicron Glasgow
    edited November 2006
    Ah well, so much for budgeting....
    :buck:
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    When I look at those number they tell me that I am better off with 1066 at 5-5-5 than with 533 at 3-3-3.
    But it looks like 800 at 4-4-4 gets you most of the bang.
    Remember that many people are running the C2D at the 1:1 ratio and 800 memory speeds because they have the FSB overclocked so high.

    Now I just need to find a mobo......
  • JBJB Carlsbad, CA
    edited November 2006
    edcentric wrote:
    Remember that many people are running the C2D at the 1:1 ratio and 800 memory speeds because they have the FSB overclocked so high.

    That is an incredible FSB OC 266 MHz-> 400 MHz! I didn't check the article so pardon my ignorance, but doesn't that throw your PCI/SATA/etc clocks off spec? Is there a separate divider for the other buses in the bios?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    Almost all C2D motherboards, even Intel's reference, has PCI/SATA/PCI-E locks on them. Most of the really good P965 boards can do a 500MHz FSB, mine can, but I preferred the higher clockspeed and I didn't lose much bandwidth (About 33MHz worth) due to the way the 965 chipset handles FSBs.
  • JBJB Carlsbad, CA
    edited November 2006
    Thrax wrote:
    Almost all C2D motherboards, even Intel's reference, has PCI/SATA/PCI-E locks on them.

    Talk about icing on the cake! Must...keep...mouse and credit card away...from...newegg...
  • Datsun-1600Datsun-1600 Sydney.au
    edited November 2006
    Radeon_Man wrote:
    Talk about icing on the cake! Must...keep...mouse and credit card away...from...newegg...
    Do it for F@H, an E6600 @ stock is doing ~4,700ppw.

    Datsun 1600
Sign In or Register to comment.