[Halloweendm]

I ran the Everest home edition on my system and it showed that my memory was 2 sticks of 512mb Corsair memory. Memory speed is listed as PC3200 and then in parenthesis it reads 200mhz. PC3200 is supposed to be 400mhz, if I am not mistaken. Is there a setting in the BIOS that I need to tweak to get it up to 400mhz?

It also reads Highest CAS Latentcy as 2.5 and then (5.0 ns@200mhz). What exactly does this mean? Will the latentcy go down to 2.5 at 400mhz? And is 2.5 considered "low" latentcy?

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PC3200 DDR (DDR400) has a bandwidth of 3.2GB/sec and is designed for use in systems and motherboards which require a 200MHz front-side bus with an effective front-side bus speed of 400MHz.

Its effective front-side bus speed is 400MHz because DDR effectively doubles the amount of data transferred per cycle that a non-DDR system would.

The term "dual channel" refers to the DDR or DDR2 chipset on certain motherboards designed with two memory channels instead of one. The two channels handle memory-processing more efficiently by utilizing the theoretical bandwidth of the two modules, thus reducing system latencies, the timing delays that inherently occur with one memory module. For example, one controller reads and writes data while the second controller prepares for the next access, hence, eliminating the reset and setup delays that occur before one memory module can begin the read/write process all over again. Think of it like two relay runners. The first runner runs one leg while the second runner sets up and prepares to receive the baton smoothly and carry on the task at hand without delay. While performance gains from dual-channel chipsets aren't huge, they can increase bandwidth by as much as 10 percent. To those seeking to push the performance envelope, that 10 percent can be very important.

If you have a dual-channel platform and you want to take advantage of the performance gain it offers, install DDR or DDR2 memory in pairs, the modules must be identical to each other to perform correctly.

[Retired Tech]

PC3200 DDR (DDR400) has a bandwidth of 3.2GB/sec and is designed for use in systems and motherboards which require a 200MHz front-side bus with an effective front-side bus speed of 400MHz.

Its effective front-side bus speed is 400MHz because DDR effectively doubles the amount of data transferred per cycle that a non-DDR system would.

The term "dual channel" refers to the DDR or DDR2 chipset on certain motherboards designed with two memory channels instead of one. The two channels handle memory-processing more efficiently by utilizing the theoretical bandwidth of the two modules, thus reducing system latencies, the timing delays that inherently occur with one memory module. For example, one controller reads and writes data while the second controller prepares for the next access, hence, eliminating the reset and setup delays that occur before one memory module can begin the read/write process all over again. Think of it like two relay runners. The first runner runs one leg while the second runner sets up and prepares to receive the baton smoothly and carry on the task at hand without delay. While performance gains from dual-channel chipsets aren't huge, they can increase bandwidth by as much as 10 percent. To those seeking to push the performance envelope, that 10 percent can be very important.

If you have a dual-channel platform and you want to take advantage of the performance gain it offers, install DDR or DDR2 memory in pairs, the modules must be identical to each other to perform correctly.