DDR400 on Thoroughbred Core???

[rheteric]

What I would believe to be a really simple question for the techies out there:

I wanted to give my father a budget upgrade for Christmas so I got him an MSI KT4AV-L mobo with an Athlon XP 2000+. He is going to up the RAM I gave him from PC2100 (266MHz) to PC3200 (400MHz). He is aware of the restrictions MSI has put on the board for DDR400, so compatability-wise he is looking in the right direction.......

My question tho: Is DDR400 going to make a marked difference, than say DDR333, when we are talking about a 266MHz Thoroughbred Core? Or would DDR400 be more highly intended/utilized on a Barton processor with higher FSB? If this premise is true, I'm curious to know what is the "slowest" processor available to take advantage of DDR400's speed?

Thanks TechIMOers

[ArcticFox]

If the bus is only 266Mhz or 333Mhz, using DDR400 won't be any faster than DDR266 or DDR333. But you really shouldn't use DDR333 in a 400Mhz FSB system like mine.

[tgxiii]

One advantage to getting RAM that's rated at a speed faster than the CPU FSB is that you could use tighter timings with it and get it to run more stable. At least that's from my personal experience.

[rheteric]

Thanks for the replies, folks...... So what you are telling me is that the AMD 3200+ with Barton Core (400MHz Bus speed) is the most minimal core right now that is spec'ed for the use of DDR400? The exception I suppose would be for those who are overclocking their FSB, right? Interesting, see, as this mobo from MSI is a VIA KT400 chipset, yet VIA chipsets do not officially support this core on anything less than the KT600 chipset. Am I making any sense with this argument or am I becoming my father's child here? So when is DDR400 good to have?.?.?.... if you've got a 64bit CPU? Or perhaps a 400MHz FSB CPU? Or, is it more geared towards the Intel CPUs but the market demanded it for AMDs, or something like that?

Arctic Fox, what exactly are you running at 400MHz FSB?

[ArcticFox]

I'm running a 2500+/333 as a 3200+/400 on an Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo with an nForce2.

If your bus is 400Mhz, you need DDR400. If your bus is set at something nutty like 466, you need DDR466. Let me know if you see a pattern.

[rheteric]

DDR466?!?!? Have they actually started selling that??? Who supports it???