DRAM Clock (Need advice)

[Xorcist]

I'm currently considering Shuttle's AV49N as my next motherboard. The downloadable manual states the motherboard has a selectable FSB of 100Mhz or 133Mhz (can be stepped up to 165 through the bios), but allows for the DRAM clock to be set as high as 200Mhz (for DDR400 PC3200 support). My question is, would it make sense to purchase the DDR400 and push the DRAM clock to 200Mhz (even though my FSB will max out at 133Mhz, utilizing a P4 2.4GHz with a 533Mhz PSB)? I'm not quite clear on whether this is "asynchronous" or not (and how that would effect overall performance). I assume this would be considered overclocking though since the DRAM clock will exceed what the FSB is running at, but I'm a bit new to this (so tell me if it's not). How stable would such a system be? Is this a normal practice? Would I be better off just getting DDR266 to match the FSB? I'm looking for gaming performance, but also stabability.

[Bruneau]

Running the fsb and ram async does NOT give you the performance boost of running them sync. In fact it takes quite a hit on the downward slope.

Another thing to ponder is how outa whack you'll throw the pci and agp busses by going that far past 133.

[Xorcist]

So my best bet, if I intend to purchase the AV49N, would be to just get the DDR266. I wasn't quite sure why they were even supporting the DDR400 if the FSB was so limited. Like I said I'm a bit new to this (I've built plenty of older systems, but nothing in the past year or so, and a lot has changed).

I guess I could always dump the AV49N entirely and purchase a completely different motherboard and CPU so that DDR400 would be properly supported. Would a P4 2.4Ghz run okay given a FSB of 200Mhz (i.e. 200 x 12 = 2400)? or would I have to go with a newer processor? My cash is a bit limited right now, and the P4 2.4Ghz + the Shuttle AV49N was only going to run me about $224.

Note: I haven't bought any components yet, I'm just doing research to make sure when I do, I buy the right stuff.

[Bruneau]

Oh hell, I thought you were talkin AMD. Better scrub what I said. Some of those intel chipsets run better async. SOrry.

[thekingofpain]

Id go with a different board---I looked at the Shuttle and cant tell alot featurewise about it---2.4b's are known overclockers good for 3.0 and above (18X133=2394 stock) a good board with a pci lock and the ability to run a 3:4 or 4:5 ratio can really bump your ddr memorys performance up while using the retail cooler and no special case cooling hoopjumps---cheap alt to the Shuttle would be an Abit BD-7 II (tough to find---I just got one 90$) its basically the IT-7 Max with the legacy ports (which I also have) itl make your mem and cpu sing if you are one to spend a couple mins in the bios...

Edit---Im basing my thoughts that you want a cheap board---(there are a ton of killer boards available for your proposed combo, all more expensive)
Spend alittle more on it as its a very important part of the performance equation---

On my Max II I have a 2.4b at 3.0+ w/OCZ PC3500 EL running at 434mhz

If you have no need to OC or max your mems performance---the Shuttle will be fine...

[Xorcist]

Damn... and just when someone was starting to reply too. I've been trying to make sense of all this FSB/PSB/DDR/DRAM Clock stuff out for the past two weeks (with very few responses on many of the forums I've asked at, though I have put in a fair amount of research on my own). It used to real simple to build a machine, FSB x Ratio = Processor Speed and the memory always matched the FSB. But ever since DDR and this new Quad Read processor side bus stuff I've been quite confused. I need to put in an order sometime this week for my new machine, as this one is starting to die on me.

Any chance you would have some links to FAQs or other explanitory docs/sites on these things? The chipset the AV49N uses is a VIA PX400. I really just want to figure out if it's worth it to go with the DDR400, or if it's going to be more trouble than it's worth to get everything to play nicely together.

Also, how would I go about matching the AGP and PCI busses. Since I haven't even brought that into consideration yet. I was looking at a Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro, if that matters at all. And the AV49N seems to support AGP all the way up to 8x. There is a downloadable manual through that link in my first post if anyone wants to take the time to give it a quick read and shoot me over an opinion or two.

Edit: Thanks king, I'll look into the Abit as well, might be able to find one through Pricewatch.

[Bruneau]

When buying ram you should always be thinking of what system it MAY end up in someday. After all... it is backward compatible.

[Xorcist]

Yeah I wasn't sure about that. I remember a while back they made modules specificly for 100 or 133 (though that was a long time ago). But if the DDR400 can downgrade to DDR333 or DDR266 without any trouble, maybe I'll pick it up anyways (anyone have any opinions on memory from Corsair). That way I can play around with the FSB and DRAM Clock and see just how far I can push it. Worst case scenerio I run it at 133Mhz and at least I'll have a more up-to-date module when I decide to do my next upgrade. Cause by then the DDR266 will most likely be too slow.