P.P. Mguire said:No, 3200 ram runs at 400mhz. The FSB at 200 makes it so that the ram runs at 400mhz. Its just indicating that it is pc3200.
First of all its PP "Mguire", so get it right ot dont say it k? Now off to describe DDR to noobs. DDR=Double Data Rate get it? If your FSB is running at 200 then your ram (if using "DDR") will run at 400mhz because it is doubling the frequency at which it transfers data. Example, your video cards memory (6800GT good enough?) is at 500mhz right? Well double that and you get its actualy frequency of 1000mhz which it is rated at. See what im saying? So my old 5600ultra is tweaked w/ Rivatuner at 440mhz memory clock so its actualy frequency is 880mhz. DDR came from actualy doubling our standard PC100/133 ram speeds. Hence (did i get it right that time?) PC1600 and PC2100 which is 200/266. Just like if your FSB is at 166 your ram frequency is at 333mhz which is PC2700DDR. If you buy a 3200+ AthlonXP w/ an FSB of 400mhz, then you can bump your FSB (on the mobo) to 200 and it will give the ram the desired speed of 400mhz. So your argument of Alienware being wrong, is actualy wrong itself. I tried being as text book as possible and if you dont believe me then look at your own FSB or google it.The only way I'm going to believe otherwise is if P.P. Mcguire tries to explain it again. I had a feeling that he was making a valid point, but I couldn't understand his post.
Nubius said:jeez, can't believe theres such a big deal about this.
Truly in terms of RAM it's not '400MHz' regardless of the Double Date Rate....the true speed of it is 200MHz and if they wanted to they could word it like 200MHz (400MHz effective) or something along those lines to indicate it's Double Data Rate...but other than that when talking about RAM...if you talk about the MHz you talk about the Base MHz....which is 200 in this case and that's why it's then called 'DDR400' and not 400MHz....because it's telling you that the DOUBLE DATA RATE is 400(mhz) to some degree.
Either way the point is you can tell what they are trying to say and I doubt they are trying to make people think that it's "DDR800!!!" because after all it does say PC3200 there...but they shoulda put PC3200 - DDR400 really....but whatever who cares, no point in looking so much into it when you pretty much know what they are trying to convey