Your statement:
"In a majority of applications the positive effect from faster memory is negated by the limited bandwidth of the front-side bus that connects the chipset's North Bridge with the CPU. "

Is utterly false -- you would need to explain why using the same memory and timings applications scale with increasing CPU speed (via multiplier), i.e. X6800>E6700>E6600. This is not a bottleneck at the CPU issue, rather increased misrate/cache issue.

Jerry

!"in Core 2 Duo systems is the increased frequency of the Quad Pumped Bus which connects the CPU and the chipset's North Bridge. The resulting frequency of this bus is now 1067MHz which provides a bandwidth of 8.5GB/s. It also means that Core 2 Duo platforms have an opportunity to fully utilize the bandwidth provided by a dual-channel memory subsystem with DDR2-533 SDRAM modules. Installing even higher-frequency modules can give a chance to additionally reduce memory"


So basically high frequency ram is not necessary!!

Thanks for doing reviews that will prepare me for future upgrades. I've already found out that I recently screwed up on my DDR system by Loading 4 512 memory strips rather than 2 1024 pieces.

Most users will buy memory first and then oc. Does this mean that you can predict beforehand how much you will be able to oc a C2D ? And that no 'trial and error' is necessary ? That is, if a user buys DDR2-800 he should directly oc the FSB to 400 MHz and leave it at that ?

Detailed and understandable, excellent review - grats :)

Something is very wrong in the benchmarks.

On original system:
Far Cry (Regulator): DDR2-800: 3-3-3-10: give 197.45

On the overclocked system (by 1GHz no less) you get 193.95. And this is not an isolated incident, it is consisten with ALL your benchmarks. According to you guys overclocking a system by 1GHz causes performance drop. Awesome!

worst. analysis. ever.

This is so rich.

My Mushkin Redline PC3200 CH-5 pulls in over 7,000 MB/sec Sandra, fastr than the best DDR2-1067 tested here.

That's at 250 fsb, 2.3.2.6

Even at 233 fsb its faster.

Looks like I won't be trading in my Opeteron 165 (at 2.8 undervolted on air) anytime soon!

ROFL!

this helped me very much in deciding what I need for my boy's next computer! Thank you very much!

Nice try guys, but you missed one important point - Intel certifies it's only DDR2-800 capable chipset - the P965 - to 5-5-5 or 6-6-6- timings only. By using 4-4-4, you are violating specifications and potentially causing instability. This way the decision is quite simple - whoever wants stable system, will choose DDR2-800 with 5-5-5 as their memory. Overclockers might choose something faster but at their own risk.

Further details can be found here - http://developer.intel.com/design/chipsets/applnots/313207.h m

As I read the article just now, I brought up a second browser and independently made the same comparisons / observations as lexor: YOU HAVE REPORTED THAT THE 50% OVERCLOCKED PROCESSOR UNDERPERFORMED THE STOCK PROCESSOR !!! What? Those are blatantly counter-intuitive results and certainly aren't going to increase the credibility of your website. Who's responsible quality assurance?

So Ilya Gavrichenkov, I regret to inform you that you have, as we figuratively say in the US, "shot yourself in the foot." Your comparison of the stock and overclocked systems surely reflects an systematic error. It appears obvious that you have very likely reversed the results of your tests.

To be generous, perhaps this gross error is in reality a subterfuge to get an idea, by analyzing reader comments, of how many viewers read your articles critically.

But to the stars of thel Russian overclocking community I respectfully say: Good, intelligent work. Congratulations on your many successes. I wish we had some of those Siberian winter nights here in the southwestern US.....

Waste Site... Please provide nice material

Ilya's conclusion may explain why Intel upgraded the 975xbx2 mobo to support ddr 800 vs ddr 667 supported on the eariler xbx version.

In August, Intel announced that they would discontinue the 975xbx line for the "bearlake" eta 1st. Q. or 07.

Excellent article. It's unfortunate that some commentors misunderstood the theory of the article and the results.

How much memory can this thing hold since it's a dual Processor?

wow, your stupid website still does not have a page index for each article, just a bunch of numbers. who knows what is on pg 12? or 8? FIX IT!!!!!

good article - i gonna buil a core duo sytem

We all agree that the AMD is better. I would like to see a similar performance test for an AM2 based system

This was exactly what I was looking for. Now I know that ddr-800 PC6400 is fast enough. Memory faster than that is way more expensive and it doesn't provide any more performance during gaming.

Top notch article

Good Article.
Thorough *and* clear. I now uderstand what folk have been arguing about (on both sides).
Many thanks.
L

Great article! I read it just a couple of months after buying this very same motherboard and a pair of Kingston 1GB PC-6400. I was erratically searching the internet about overclocking for starters and I was glad to hear I accidently bought the right memory! And the article also helped a lot on overclock basics as well!

Thanks!