Q9450 - What RAM

[nickp8]

What would be the best DDR2 RAM to run with a Q9450 in a system that will not be overlclocked?

Q9450 is 2.66 GHz with a 1333FSB.

PC2-8000 (1000) / PC2-8500 (1066) / PC2-8800 (1100) / PC2-9200 (1150) / PC2-9600 (1200)?

Nickp.

[s_kinton]

PC6400 (800mhz) should suffice

[Webby]

Yeah PC2-6400 (800MHz) will be plenty fast enough, infact 667 would do but 800 is worth a few extra pennies.

[m_mohammadreza]

I would go with the answer of the others if you are short of money but If you have plenty of money and don't want to overclock but get the best speed PC2-9600 (1200) would be the best as it has the closest clock ratio to FSB which effectively result in faster speed.

[Powderhound]

I would go with the answer of the others if you are short of money but If you have plenty of money and don't want to overclock but get the best speed PC2-9600 (1200) would be the best as it has the closest clock ratio to FSB which effectively result in faster speed.

Nope, because the 1200 is the effective dual channel speed, so the true speed is 600MHz, while the FSB is the effective quad pumped speed, so the true FSB is 333MHz. Therefore, PC2-6400 with its true speed of 400MHz will suffice.

[m_mohammadreza]

Nope, because the 1200 is the effective dual channel speed, so the true speed is 600MHz, while the FSB is the effective quad pumped speed, so the true FSB is 333MHz. Therefore, PC2-6400 with its true speed of 400MHz will suffice.

Hmmm... true

[Webby]

I would go with the answer of the others if you are short of money but If you have plenty of money and don't want to overclock but get the best speed PC2-9600 (1200) would be the best as it has the closest clock ratio to FSB which effectively result in faster speed.

Um no you might what to check your understanding of how Memory speeds relate to the FSB of Intel CPUs.

First the FSB tat Intel quotes is quad pumped so a FSB of 1333 actually uses a frequency of 333Mhz.

With that in mind DDR (duel data rate) memory runs at twice its frequency so DDR2-800 has a frequency of 400MHz

So to match the FSB of the processor and memory frequency you would need DDR2-667 (as I alluded to above), while this would be fine you do still get a performance boost from having faster memory and with the cost of DDR2-800 that is the sweet spot if you are not overclocking.

Now if you are overclocking then as you increase the FSB of the CPU you need faster memory to match it and with the 1333 chips the next logical step is DDR2-1066 which would allow the Q9450 to reach 4.26GHz without overclocking the memory (assuming the chip will run this fast and the motherboard support a FSB of 533MHz).

[nickp8]

Managed to get some OCZ PC2-8800 at a good price so went for them.

Nickp.