Does Athlon 64 REQUIRE PC3200 mem?

[LxMxFxD2]

Hey all, I have an athlon 1600+ with 768MB of PC3000 RAM (256 OCZ PC3000, 512MB stick of Kingston Hyper 3000). Anyway, I bought this memory over 2 years ago so please dont call me dumb or anything - at the time this was the fasted memory.

Anyway, i was thinking of upgrading to an athlon 64 with new mobo and cpu. If I did this though, would I have to get all new memory, as my PC3000 would just barely be too slow? And if I didn't, if I put it in 366mhz mode or something, would that give me a performance hit?

Thanks all

 

[tfinch2]

Just overclock the memory to 200 mhz, it will be able to handle it.

 

[LxMxFxD2]

I'm not a big fan of overclocking. I run mission critical stuff, but I guess if the HD isn't overclocked because the system bus isn't overclocked, I suppose it won't be a problem.

Do you know if the the memory mentioned above usually overclocks to 200mhz?

Thanks

 

[Ike0069]

You can use that memory, but it would be a small peformance hit at that speed. My guess is it would OC to 3200 though.
Of course, you can get 1GB PC3200 Value RAM for $80.

 

[Steve]

Athlon64 will run just fine with PC1600 if you want, just won't have the raw speed of PC3200. You're close enough, if you need mission critical stability then leave well enough alone.

 

[LxMxFxD2]

Great, thanks guys.

As for my mission critical stuff, its just stuff that needs to not get corrupted on my hard drive. If the system crashes with the pc3000 ram @ 3200 I guess I'll buy some 3200 or something.

Thanks again

 

[spwango]

I would think that the older ram would probably be more stable--less fiddly timings and such, less optimization. I run PC2700 in my system (socket 754 3000+) and have had not issues with the [corsair, samsung] RAM I have, and this is with the MSI board, which is notoriously picky about RAM, especially corsair.

 

[aatf510]

Are you sure you have some PC3000? Officially there is no PC3000.

 

[theMan]

yeah, never heard of pc3000. if you do have it, you would have to overclock it, because there is no divider setting for it. anyway, i would spend a few bucks to get some nice pc3200 value ram.

 

[Steve]

PC3000 and PC2400 were never officially ratified as DDR speed grades by JEDEC, but you can buy RAM labeled as such that will run those speeds. They're basically RAM that was speed-binned down from PC3200 because some of its batch didn't make the PC3200 cut in testing. Whether LxMxFxD2's modules hold up at that speed is a matter of trial and error.

 

[crimson117]

Originally posted by: Ike0069
You can use that memory, but it would be a small peformance hit at that speed. My guess is it would OC to 3200 though.
Of course, you can get 1GB PC3200 Value RAM for $80.

If you've got it, spend the $80, don't bother OC'ing your 2 year old ram. 1gb with dual channel is better than 768 without anyway