Santa Rosa FSB/RAM 667Mhz 800Mhz?

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TeknoZX

Weaksauce
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Apr 11, 2005
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Hey. Been away from the H for a little bit. I don't know what happened but seems as though I can't search anymore. Did something change? I did some research and am still pretty confused.

I'm about to get a new notebook with a Santa Rosa chipset. From what I've been reading, it supports a 800Mhz FSB. But I've read a great many posts of people saying getting 800Mhz memory doesn't matter because it'll downclock to 667mhz. I don't get it. The CPU runs at 800Mhz. Can't you just pop in some 800Mhz RAM and set it to 1:1? A lot of notebooks seem to be shipping with 667Mhz. So these computers are running at what, 3:2 ratios?

I just don't get why you can't just tell the BIOS to run the ram at 800Mhz and be set like that. Can anyone clear this up for me? Thanks.
 
ICE_9 said:
Current mobile processors (Intel) run at a FSB of 667.
Click to expand...
Santa Rosa supports 800MHz FSB CPUs. The Core 2 Duo T7700/T7500/etc models support that FSB speed.

TeknoZX: The chipset only supports DDR2-533 and DDR2-667. Dual channel DDR2-667MHz provides 10.6GB/s of memory bandwidth. The 800MHz FSB CPU only needs 6.4GB/s. Even if you have integrated video, DC DDR2-667 supplies all the memory bandwidth required by the chipset.

http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/gm965/
 
PXC - great answer! I was researching for the same info as the original poster and needed the clarification. Dell is speccing their new 1520s with 800Mhz RAM, but then noting it is @ 667 Mhz which is very confusing.
 
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