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We'll start off with the regular A-B-C of memory. When you recently bought a PC, or for that matter are buying a new system you'll notice that most PC's make use of DDR400 (PC3200) memory. It's the most commonly used type as this memory matches your PC's CPU bus speed.
That CPU bus speed, also known as "front-side bus speed" (or FSB), is the speed at which the CPU communicates with RAM memory and the motherboard chipset. Athlon XPs have a 266, 333 or 400 MHz FSB, Pentium 4s have a 400MHz, 533MHz or 800MHz and the newer 1066 MHz FSB, AMD Durons have a 200MHz FSB and socket 478 Celerons have a 400MHz FSB and so on and so on.When choosing a FSB speed for the CPU you choose, be aware that you'll need to purchase memory capable of this faster speed. For example, many people are enticed by the remarkably low priced memory, yet you need to sync your memory to your CPU's FSB. First of all, all mainboard these days use either DDR or DDR2 memory, the mainboard we used needs DDR memory. In our case we know that the CPU we have uses the 800 MHz bus so we're gonna need DDR memory rated PC3200, thus 400 MHz DDR memory that is capable of handling that FSB. Just divide the CPU FSB by 2 and you are set to go.
So in our case we want to make make use of 400-533 MHz DDR memory if we are going to overclock (increase the FSB). Why all the way to DDR533 ? Simple, the platform we'll use today is equipped a Northwood based platform / Pentium 4 processor locked at 2.8 GHz. Since the processor is locked we need to increase the, there is the magic word again, FSB. The Pentium 4 processor my friends uses a quad pumped bus as Intel calls it so nicely. A 800 MHz FSB sounds better then 4x200 MHz. When you start fooling around with that FSB you better make sure you have some really good memory as the increased FSB will have a huge impact on the memory also.
Secondly, always make sure you buy two bars so that you can have a dual-channel memory configuration, which effectively double's the memory bandwidth and the Pentium 4 loves that bandwidth for sure. Allow me to introduce the a picture of this RAM...
Judging from the specifications, the module is a little voltage hungry when starting to overclock.
Specifications Speed Memory Timings Voltage Settings
- PC3200 (400MHz) 2-2-2-5-1T 2.6-2.7v
- PC3500 (436MHz) 2-3-3-6-1T 2.6-2.7v
- PC3700 (466MHz) 2-3-3-6-1T 2.7-2.8v
- PC4000 (500MHz) 2.5-3-3-7-1T 2.75-2.85v
- PC4200 (533MHz) 3-4-4-8-1T 2.85-2.95v
So Patriot memory claims the chips will run in good health at PC 4200 (267MHz) 3-4-4-8 @ 2.85V, thus 267 MHz. Underneath the hood we'll find 64Mbit DRAM chips, which will bring you a total of 512MB of memory on each bar. The silicon used is the lovely Samsung K4H560838F-TCCD.
