RAM/Motherboard Specs Question

[cowdood]

I know there are so many specifications on motherboards and ram, and I am just curious as to what some of them mean.

Motherboards- I know frontside bus has to do with memory, but how does it work? do they have to be the same frequency to run most effectively?

On a particular one I'm looking at, it says the FSB says 1600/1333MHz. Why are there two different frequencies? Also, it says the memory standard is 1066. Why wouldn't they be the same?

As for memory, does cas latency really affect gameplay that much? Would I want buffered or unbuffered for just a home gaming system (or is there even an option)? Do I want self-correcting?

I know that's a lot of questions, so just feel free to answer just one or whatever. Thanks to everyone in advance!

 

[wol-va-rine]

I know there are so many specifications on motherboards and ram, and I am just curious as to what some of them mean.

Motherboards- I know frontside bus has to do with memory, but how does it work? do they have to be the same frequency to run most effectively?

On a particular one I'm looking at, it says the FSB says 1600/1333MHz. Why are there two different frequencies? Also, it says the memory standard is 1066. Why wouldn't they be the same?

As for memory, does cas latency really affect gameplay that much? Would I want buffered or unbuffered for just a home gaming system (or is there even an option)? Do I want self-correcting?

I know that's a lot of questions, so just feel free to answer just one or whatever. Thanks to everyone in advance!

FSB is a pretty debatable topic, people run ratios that don't match up 1:1 all the time with no problems, even I do, but I prefer to get the 1:1 ratio, it doesn't matter if your cpu or memory is faster, their interaction is going to be limited by the slower component...

the 1600 FSB on the motherboard you mentioned may say (OC) after it, meaning that it can be safely OCed to 1600mhz from a native FSB of 1333mhz, a 1600mhz FSB is really a good number because you can get a 1:1 ratio with your RAM if you run it at 800mhz...

Intel cpus are quad pumped, so a 1600mhz FSB is really 400mhz quad pumped, DDR and DDR2 are double data rate so 800mhz DDR/DDR2 is really 400mhz double pumped, so you have the magical 1:1 ratio for the FSB (cpu:memory)...

it also depends on what platform you're running, Intel or AMD, AMD allows you to run memory at higher frequencies because there is no FSB, though AMD systems do have limits as well...

 

[StratosP]

Just to add on what wol-va-rine said (btw good post)

AMD uses Hyper Transport if your wondering.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperTransport

 

[wol-va-rine]

Just to add on what wol-va-rine said (btw good post)

AMD uses Hyper Transport if your wondering.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperTransport

thanks, and good link, I know nothing about AMD based systems, it's something I'm definitely gonna read...