In another thread I believe someone brought this question up.

Question #1: Say I have a Athlon XP 2800 processor with a 333MHz FSB. The RAM that I buy is 400mhz PC3200. Would I have a problem with this setup and would I be running some sort of bottleneck?

In the near future I plan on building a new PC and this is a question I want to address before I do so, because I don't want to spend $400+ on a Athlon XP 3200 with a 400mhz FSB when I can get the Athlon XP 2800 with a 333mhz for only $168.00.

I think the Asus A7N8X only supports up to a 333mhz FSB (166x2). Can someone confirm this?

Edit: Nevermind. A7N8X indeed only supports 333MHz processor FSB.


Parts "in question"
-----------------------
AMD Athlon XP 2800 "Barton" 333 FSB

Corsair XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series 256MB PC3200 400mhz w/Heat spreader (will be running 2 of these for dual channel)





Question #2: Which Athlon XP is the best overclocker? I *think* I heard someone say the 3000+ would overclock to 3.6GHz? (or something like that). Sounds pretty crazy but I'm not 100% sure what I heard.

Asus A7N8X v2.0 supports 400 fsb.

Answer #1. No bottleneck. You could overclock your cpu by decreasing the multiplier settings (to avoid too much overclock) and increasing the fsb settings to 400 fsb. That will eliminate any bottleneck and give you a fast system at low cost.

Answer #2. Athlon XP 1700+ (soon to be discontinued).

AMD XP1700 JIUHB - Hexus

Not as fast as Athlon XP 3000+ when overclocked, but a damn sight cheaper.

Well, the objective is for a faster computer than what I have. I have a AXP 2100.

The main question I had is if the RAM is running at 400mhz and the processor at 333mhz, would that be a bottleneck (force the RAM to only actually run at 333mhz which would make it redundant to buy PC3200).

...and you want to run the RAM synchronous with the FSB. running RAM at 200 with the FSB at 166 you will not gain anything with that mobo.