What is "Clock speed" as related to computer RAM?

Question

I am upgrading my memory. My original cards are 266MHz. Is it important that the upgrades have the same clock speed, or should I get something faster? Does it make a difference?

Answer 1

Go to this link, click the Scan My System button and it will tell you what your motherboard can handle.

http://www.crucial.com/index.asp

Answer 2

A CPU's clock speed is the FSB speed times a multiplier i.e. 200MHz FSB X 15 would give you a 3GHz CPU. The multiplier can't be increased for most CPUs while the FSB speed can be altered. The ram speed is determined by the FSB speed, either the same (for sdram), double (for ddr), and quadruple (ddr2), assuming the FSB:ram ratio is set at 1:1, which is the default. The ratio uses the base speed of the RAM, i.e. 200MHz for 800MHz ddr2, not the actual speed. You can choose different ratios, like 3:4, for higher ram speeds, but 1:1 generally performs best. This is one reason why most people who want to use ram at higher speeds than the FSB will allow at a 1:1 ratio, generally increase the FSB speed (overclock) instead of decreasing the ratio, the other main reason being that increasing the FSB speed automatically increases the CPU speed.
Thus using 333MHz ddr ram with a motherboard that only supports a 133MHz bus (the bus speed is determined by the motherboard, not the processor or the ram) means that the ram will only run at 266MHz even though its rated for 333MHz. The extra rated speed would only matter if you overclocked the computer or the ram has tighter timings (lower latency) at 266MHz.

Answer 3

Also called clock rate, the speed at which a microprocessor executes instructions. Every computer contains an internal clock that regulates the rate at which instructions are executed and synchronizes all the various computer components. The CPU requires a fixed number of clock ticks (or clock cycles) to execute each instruction. The faster the clock, the more instructions the CPU can execute per second.
Clock speeds are expressed in megahertz (MHz) or gigahertz ((GHz).

The internal architecture of a CPU has as much to do with a CPU's performance as the clock speed, so two CPUs with the same clock speed will not necessarily perform equally. Whereas an Intel 80286 microprocessor requires 20 cycles to multiply two numbers, an Intel 80486 or later processor can perform the same calculation in a single clock tick. (Note that clock tick here refers to the system's clock, which runs at 66 MHz for all PCs.) These newer processors, therefore, would be 20 times faster than the older processors even if their clock speeds were the same. In addition, some microprocessors are superscalar, which means that they can execute more than one instruction per clock cycle.

Like CPUs, expansion buses also have clock speeds. Ideally, the CPU clock speed and the bus clock speed should be the same so that neither component slows down the other. In practice, the bus clock speed is often slower than the CPU clock speed, which creates a bottleneck. This is why new local buses, such as AGP, have been developed.

Answer 4

You should check if the FSB combination of your processor and motherboard allow for faster memories. The thing is, if you by memories that run faster than your whole system, you won't notice the upgrade, cause the extra bandwidth won't be used. So, check the rest of the hardware you got. The "MHZ" spec, in memories, reffers to how fast the processor can transfer stuff from different devices (like modems, network cards, CD/DVD, hard drive, etc) to the memory and back. The higher MHZ, the smaller "latency" the memory has -> the faster the memory is.
Hope you get it..

Answer 5

Faster clock = Better performance
Example: Apple "speak",
Their (Apples) computers are sold based only on clock speed....
This indicates that the higher the numbers the better off the buyer will be... simple as that.
JE Bressman

Answer 6

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Answer 7

halloween