What DDR2 Speed?

Building yet another rig for a family member and I have a question about RAM. The board is a Biostar TForce-6100 AM2 microATX that supports DDR2 800. The processor is an AM2 Athlon 3800 AM2 single core. I'm trying to keep the price down and the DDR2 800 is pretty darned pricey and I don't think it's really needed. What would be a good memory speed that would satisfy the board/CPU without breaking the bank yet still have good performance? Thanks gang.
Crazylegs

 

Your motherboard can accommodate up to 4GB of DDR-2 400/533/667/800 memory...so therefore the 400 will be the bottom end.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?Recs=10&Nav=|c:1554|c:1716|&Sort=0

Roger

 

Thanks Rogvalcox, I understand that. Where I'm ignorant is how to match the speed to the CPU to get the best bang for the buck. The K7s,754s and 939s were pretty simple to match the memory to the FSB MHZ. But on these, the numbers just don't make sense. I've been everywhere for an explanation on how to do it but to no avail. Can you give me a fast crash course on the AM2/DDR2 relationship? In other words, on the older chips, you could, for instance use DDR 400 instead of the DDR 333 (side bus of 333 MHz on the CPU, just as an example) but the best bang for the buck would be to use DDR 333. I'm not seeing how that works with the AM2 chip and the DDR2 memory. Thanks.
Crazylegs

 

As usual your memory will be slower than the FSB, but typically the L1 and L2 cache will help buffer the bottleneck/lag. Ofcourse you will get closer to the bus speed if you get the DDR2 800, but if you go with the 400 you will still have adequate performance, and will still be running faster than if you had a system that was running, say, an XP 3000 with 400 mhz of standard ddr1 400. Technically speaking, that is. I personally haven't had the honors to work with AM@ and DDR2, but that is just what I've read here and there and combining that with the hardware logic/knowledge that I have stored in that thick skull of mine!!

Again...It also depends on what you are doing with this system too!! If you are running Adobe Photoshop, then you will see a more significance in performance ratios in relation to hardware specs, as opposed to if you are just googling recipes, or reading e-mails!!

Roger

 

Rogvalcox, thanks.
Crazylegs