well i know if i use a ratio to keep my fsb the same speed but increase my memory speed, my computer is supposed to be faster, but i dont have any way to estimate that speed increase, and i dont know what exactly happens in my mobo when i do that. can any particularly informed folks out there shine their light on me?

ok so how do i rank the following in terms of overall speed? is there a formula to estimate? i dont want to buy a whole bunch of mobos and ram and bench em all.

1066fsb - 533ram - 1:1
1066fsb - 667ram - 4:5
1066fsb - 800ram - 2:3
1066fsb - 1066ram - 1:2
1333fsb - 533ram - 5:4
1333fsb - 667ram - 1:1
1333fsb - 1000ram - 2:3
1600fsb - 800ram - 1:1
1600fsb - 1066ram - 4:3

I definitely do not 'know alot about fsb:ram ratio' but here goes anyway...

Most people like to run at 1:1 so everything's in sync. That said, if you can't up the FSB but your RAM's got room to move then a divider will help you. Faster RAM is said to give a more 'responsive' computer (in Windoze or alt+tabbing), but I've never worked with ultra-high speed RAM so I'm just repeating what I've heard. Underclocked RAM could be seen as an opportunity to tighten the RAM timings instead of upping its speed with a divider.

Increasing the FSB will give you heaps more performance than changing the divider, as this essentially overclocks your whole system. The primary reason for upping the FSB is to up the CPU speed, but obviously it also ups the RAM speed. I think this puts more temperature on your north-bridge, but I'm not 100% on that.

The situation is a bit more confusing with the newer AMD systems, they have an extra divider in there somewhere, so I'm leaving that well alone.

Looks like your 2nd post has those ranked in order of overall speed already.

If you want a laugh, have a read of this page on the merits of 1:1 timings:
http://www.computing.net/answers/cpus/ram-11-myth-crushed/14450.html

If you don't have a 1:1 ration then a bottleneck will enter the picture. The idea is that the one running faster will have to wait for the one running slower, so what's the point of even having it faster? So - you can then start to overclock by adjusting the CPU frequency and overclocking your "system" as opposed to a "system component" (i.e. - Ram or CPU) as a whole. That's all that ratio is for.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.