PCTech Forums

System: P4 3ghz//P4C800-E D//9800 xt 256//500 watt ps

just wondering what the best possible ram would be for my system and compatible

looking for a gig- system is used for gaming
was looking at OCZ Gold Edition Rev2 Dual Channel Kit 184-Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-4000 but not sure if this was the best ram possible. and if anything higher is compatible with my mb

your CPU is an 800 fsb model (400 times 2.. dual channel ram [or 200x 4). The fastest speed it will be able to deal with, without complicated timings would be 400 mhz (200x2), or PC3200 ram.

PC4000 ram runs at 500 mhz (250x2), so in order to use its full speed, your motherboard would have to accept seperate timings for your ram and your FSB (which most motherboards don't). At this point your ram would technically be running faster than the FSB, and would be a little faster. You probably would not notice it in anything but synthetic benchmarks (programs specificically written to test ram speed)

The only other reason someone would go with faster rated ram would be so they could overclock their FSB. You may be able to get your CPU to run at up to a 430mhz (215 mhz) with air cooling, but you'd only need pc3500 433 mhz (216x2) ram at that point.

If you want to squeeze every last bit of speed from your system, the pc4000 ram would be a little faster, but I am very sceptical that you'd noitice any difference in real world computing tasks. The PC4000 ram would be a little more future-proof to move into your next system, but by then DDR-2 or DDR-3 ram will probably be the standard.