RAM compatability question

[whc.demo]

my friend has offered to give me 2 x 512mb of 533mhz ram, im unsure if its ddr or ddr2? (do they make 533 ddr?)


anyway my mobo only supports upto ddr400, if these new sticks from my friend are infact ddr am i able to put them in and they will just run at 400mhz or will it cause problems??


then to make it a little more complicated i already have 2 x 512mb ddr400 so was wondering if i can put all 4 sticks in and they will all run at 400mhz? is this likely to cause problems??

btw im not overclocking atm

[DOM]

im not sure its ddr cuz on newegg it only has ddr500,550

[whc.demo]

ill get him to run cpu-z or something after work and see exactly what it is he has..

and assuming it is ddr and not ddr2, will it go into my mobo and just run at 400mhz instead of 533?


btw mobo is a gigabyte ga-8ig1000pro-g, and infact i think it clocks all ram sticks down to 333 when you have 4 sticks inserted... i think...

[DOM]

well it might be ddr but tell him to make sure ;) and im not sure about the speeds i know it would down clock it

wait let me see if my ddr2 8000 works with my ddr2 4300 in my dell :laugh: see if it down clocks be right back

[pt]

i'm almost sure it's ddr2
i never heard of ddr 533
but ddr2 533 are lots of them

[DOM]

well i googled ddr 533 and found some

but i dont think is going to work if your max is ddr400 cuz mine wouldnt boot but i might be wrong but it didnt work for me

[AthlonX2]

i doubt it will matter because the spd of the 533 would only read 400 because of the JEDEC rules but it is rated to go upto DDR533 that means it can run 1:1 upto those speeds which would be 265fsb for amd:toast:

[WarEagleAU]

I believe its DDR2. 500 and 550 DDR is super overclockable chips with higher timings (like 3-4-4-9) or something like this.

[niko084]

As long as the timings and voltages fit your chipset you should be able to run the ram. You can always put faster ram in a slower machine it just wont run as fast.

[whc.demo]

ok i have another question, not really related to my first post.


if i had 4 x 333mhz sticks in my pc in dual channel will that bottleneck an 800fsb cpu/mobo?

[niko084]

ok i have another question, not really related to my first post.


if i had 4 x 333mhz sticks in my pc in dual channel will that bottleneck an 800fsb cpu/mobo?

Well your ram would be slow.. But bottleneck term there would be a rough call depending on if it was really your ram access speed, the amount of ram, and it would have a lot to do with what your chip is...

You should run 400 or higher ram, but it probably isn't hurting you too bad if really much at all.