Right now I have Athlon 3000 with 333 FSB and 512 RAM PC2700. Now, if I were to get PC3200 RAM, would it function properly in my system or would I have to get cpu with 400 FSB to accomodate the new ram?
You have found the only downfall with AMD. The CPU's will not work properly with with RAM that has a higher FSB then it's self. I have seen this prob., I run the same chip, and had no luck with getting the 3200 to work.
You have found the only downfall with AMD. The CPU's will not work properly with with RAM that has a higher FSB then it's self. I have seen this prob., I run the same chip, and had no luck with getting the 3200 to work.
Uhhh that is complete bs. My last system was a 2400+ XP which has 266FSB, I had a stick of PC2700 and a stick of PC3200 in there and my motherboard overclocked my PC2700 to 2x199 = 398MHz so I think you'd better check your sources again cricket. Or perhaps you just had bad luck or something, but the answer is yes you can put in a RAM stick that's higher than your CPU, but you will be creating a bottleneck
Your going to have to overclock your CPU in order to get full power out of PC3200 ram. If your FSB is at 333mhz and your ram speed is 400mhz the CPU is only going to feed info to it at 333mhz so the ram will only function at that speed.
Maybe I am wrong, we all get things wrong now and then.
Its just that I have seen this in many systems when it comes to the 3000, mine supports up to 400Mhz (for what chip, not sure . I have it maxed)
I personally have not tried this on newer boards, they might have fixed this problem. In the end check your boards manual, if there is a problem they will print it there.