via chipset - Tech Support Forums

Lenster · April 20th, 2003, 01:53 PM

Hello again,

I was just wondering about this.

I was looking at some websites and came across some info on the Via KT400 chipset. In the diagram they had, it showed the north bridge. I noticed that it showed that it supports amd athlon xp and duron cpu's with a fsb of 200/266/333. Now for the memory bus it shows it supports 200/266/333/400.
Why would it support pc3200 (400) if it only supports a cpu fsb up to 333?
If one was to put 3200 memory in a computer with a 333fsb cpu and a via kt400 chipset would they not be fully utililizing all of the memory? From my understanding the memory would be only running at 333mhz.
Maybe im missing something here....Im just wondering.

Thanks

Peter M · April 20th, 2003, 02:56 PM

The CPU isn't the only entity accessing the RAM. Other bus masters include graphics, IDE, USB, LAN and whatever else you stuff in there. Under heavy CPU load, using the faster RAM will give you the bit of headroom needed to let the I/O still haul some data without stalling the CPU (and vice versa). This is something that hardly shows in benchmarks.

RamonGTP · April 21st, 2003, 07:23 AM

Also, just becuase the board doesn't "officially" support 400 fsb processors, doesn't mean it won't be able to run them. For example, my EPoX 8K3A+ (KT333) doesn't officially support 333MHz processors, but I've got my current processor running at 333MHz with no problems.

Xtreeme · April 21st, 2003, 06:53 PM

RamonGTP
With stock pci and agp multi's. Thats the question-if not no wonder its not officially supported. Its oclocking.

RamonGTP · April 21st, 2003, 07:59 PM

Right, it all depends on wether or not the PCI/AGP busses are either locked, or have the correct dividers when upping the FSB to the next step... Luckily for me, the EPoX board I got had the correct dividers for a 166mhz bus speed even though its not officially supported.