Hello
  I think the original question is why are units rated at higher speeds
often cheaper per MB than lower performance units.  This is probably a
combination of supply and demand with a little marketing thrown in. 
However since some items such as ram change so quickly these tend to be
more erratic and sometimes seemingly illogical in pricing.

  As for using higher speed ram on older mobos it is still more economical
in any case to buy the cheapest perMB ram you can find.  Whether or not you
can use the extra performance depends totally on your mobo and bios. 
However since one of the biggest obstacles to stable speed is heat, one
almost always gains stability by buying higher performance items since they
generally will produce or retain heat to a lesser degree therreby improving
overall system stability.  Additionally even if your mobo does not
advertise support for higher performance ram your bios might allow
substantial increases in performance at the very least by setting
"memory timings" to faster CAS, etc settings.  Most mobo's bioses
at least provide for manual control of ram timing.  Many also allow higher
and even separate timing settings for FSB and/or memory bus.  One may not
be able to get all the way up to 400 (200x2) from 266 (133x2) depending
again on bios features but considerable gain is possible.  The advan

tages of forward-looking bios features is a very strong argument for buying
very high quality, performance oriented mobos in the first place as opposed
to cutting corners there, where the rubber meets the road so to speak,
especially for those of us that keep systems long past their expected
"virility" period.

  A good ecample of this in action is the fact that I, who expect
considerable multimedia performance from my machines since I do high
quality audio recording and editting as well as some 3D gaming and movie
watching a la DVR, only this year retired an Asus P3Bf which employed the
venerable, but ancient, 440BX chipset.  Through cutting edge (then) bios
features (FSB support up to 133MHz) and a few hardware upgrades such as a
slotket making the use of Coppermine CPUs possible (up to 1.8GHz) and a
Promise IDE accelerator card it outperformed many systems years newer.  my
only reason for replacing it was the AGP X2 restriction. Unfortunately I
foolishly replaced it with merely a jump to AGP x 4 mobo and find myself
lusting after AGP x 8 in just a few months.  However since I am also
seriously considering moving to an AMD 64 bit system nad they have become
quite reasonable ther move shouldn't be too costly since the replacement
mobo was also of extreme quality and therefore will likely sti

ll bring a good price from a friend or family member seeking to upgrade.

  In summary and back to the specific question, it is often economical to
buy higher performance items even if they are slightly more expensive and
*certainly* smart, IMHO and experience, when they actually cost less.

Jimmy


> In , on 06/19/05 
>    at 09:07 AM, Kevin Johnson  said:
> 
> >But he higher speeds still work in the lower spped enviroment, don't
> >they?
> 
> Yes,but thr system will only run at the lower FSB that is on the board.
> 
> Chimo!
> Vic Green 
> CALGARY,ALBERTA
> eComStation 1.2,Java 1.4.2,Mozilla 1.73,MR2ICE 2.60b,.......Doing what
I want to 
> do, and not what Pieface Billy wants me to do.
> Microsoft is to quality software as MacDonalds is to gourmet food. 
> "Windows for Dummies" is not only a book title,it is
Microsoft company 
> philosophy.
> 
> 
> 
>  
> Yahoo! Groups Links
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 


 
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