New p.c. time, 21 questions, sorry.

BloodBath

Ok I should be ordering a new p.c. from komplett by next week with a budit of around 2000(e). I have been checking out everything that has come out over the last couple of months and have pretty much finalised most of my decissions. Just need some advise on what I have chosen and what i'm not sure about.I want a high spec machine so i'm not interested in getting a lower spec to save money. I want to spend 2 grand here.

Monitor- Which komplett monitor should I go for. I'm getting a 19" crt. I thought the Samsung 19" CRT Syncmaster 959NF TCO99 myself as it has higher refresh rates than the others although it's around 50 squid more than the rest. Any alternatives?

Graphics card- I was going to splash out on a Radeon 9800xt but I think I might just go for the powercolor 9800 pro. 200 euro extra to spend on the rest of the machine but are powercolor cards reliable and do they perform well? Are they noisy?

Processor/Mobo- What processor/mobo package should I go for? I was originally going for a athlon 3000 with a decent mobo with lan, s-ata, and dual memory capabilities but my choice of ram might cause trouble. I am looking to get pc4000 ram but this is clocked at 500mhz while most socket A boards are 333 or 400mhz. Does this mean that the pc4000 ram is useless with socket A and only intended for pentium boards or should I scrap the athlon and get an 800mhz clocked pentium 4 3.0ghz with rd ram? Is there much or a performance difference between the athlone 3000 and the pentium 4 3.0ghz and which is better for overclocking?

Phew im getting tired

Hard-drive- Ok I have heard a lot about the barracudas being quiet and reliable so my choice of hd would be the Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 120GB S-ATA. Is this a good HD or does anyone know a better one? I was contemplating maybe getting a Western Digital Raptor 36,7GB 10,000 SATA along with a 7200rpm 80gig for back-up. This would be an extra 90 euro but would it be worth paying the extra to use the 10000rpm for my OS and games and using the 80 gig for the rest. Would there be much of a difference?

Ok I think thats pretty much it. Sorry about all the questions. Cheers.


BloodBath

Dempsey

The ram should work but it will be underclocked unless you raise the FSB Speed.

I would recommend getting a P4 if ya have a big budget, you'll be paying more but getting better performance.

I got a P4 2.8c and a IC7-G and its sweet. Get a SATA 120Gb or get 2xRaptors for good performance. I got OCZ DDR400 Ram (which is for overclocking) and it performs very very well.(i'll have link later)

The rest seems fine but I'd nearly go for the 9800Pro because is the performance difference worth the price difference? Im not sure.

Winters

Originally posted by Dempsey
I would recommend getting a P4 if ya have a big budget, you'll be paying more but getting better performance.

I would advise the opposite. Id say you would get better performance from an Athlon and also more for your money.

Look through soem reviews on the 9800pro and 9800XT. Both do perform similar and there would not be too much of a differance between either the pro or xt but the xt is that bit better. Choose as you see fit. Remember the Sapphire cards come with free HL2 when it ships next year or so.

Dempsey

Originally posted by Winters
I would advise the opposite. Id say you would get better performance from an Athlon and also more for your money.

Winters, Looking at any benchmarks test comparing P4's to Athlon. P4 have outperformed Athlons in nearly ALL tests.

Example

BloodBath

Yeah they all come with a free copy of HL2 not just the sapphire ones. I could always get the powercolor 9800 pro and flash it to a 9800xt. I have to find out if its safe first and if the card would be able for the extra heat. Has anyone done this or does anyone have a link to someone who has done it?

My reasoning for getting the Pentium chips was the ram problem. It seems the fastest I can go with the athlons is 400mhz and thats only the 3.2 which is too pricey. The others are only 333mhz. I could get a 3.0 pentium 4 which is cheaper and has an 800 mhz fsb along with an 800 mhz mobo which would enable me to get the pc4000 ram or faster rd ram which goes up to 1066mhz. Thats a **** load faster than anything you can get for a socket A board.

I'm happy enough with the range of products on komplett except for the cases and monitors. Anybody know somewhere else in Ireland where I can get good cases/monitors?

Just to add more questions


BloodBath

MrPinK

Originally posted by Dempsey
Winters, Looking at any benchmarks test comparing P4's to Athlon. P4 have outperformed Athlons in nearly ALL tests.

Example

Citing benchmarks from tom's hardware isn't likely to win anyone over

But yes, if you are comparing by Athlon's crappy naming system then the P4's nearly always come out on top. If you compare by similarly priced chips though, it's not as clear cut.

BloodBath

Cheers for that link Dempsey. It seems the Pentium 4 3.0ghz performs better than even the athlon 3200 right across the board and a komplett price comparrison tells me I might just get that Pentium.

Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz Boxed PC800
- Socket PGA478, 512kB "Northwood"
316.77

AMD Athlon XP3200+ 2,2 GHz 400 MHz bus
- Socket A (Barton) processor, 512kb BOXED
382.28

**** sake I don't want the bloody thing boxed though. I want to buy my own fan, not some cheap, noisy piece of crap that allows very little overclocking. Why is there no unboxed version.


BloodBath

whosurpaddy

Originally posted by BloodBath
Anybody know somewhere else in Ireland where I can get good cases/monitors?

check out elara they hav ea nice range of cases, an their in dublin so u dont have to deal with a large shipping bill, not sure of their monitor selection, but it would proably be easier/cheaper to get one in town in peats/maplins/IT direct, when u factor in shipping. this is of course presuming that you are in dublin.

Creamy Goodness

Originally posted by BloodBath
I could always get the powercolor 9800 pro and flash it to a 9800xt. I have to find out if its safe first and if the card would be able for the extra heat. Has anyone done this or does anyone have a link to someone who has done it?

powercolours don't overclock well get a saphhire or hercules and clock that to a XT

or you could buy an 9800XT from powercolor because they are made by saphire and are just rebranded.

Dempsey

Originally posted by MrPinK
Citing benchmarks from tom's hardware isn't likely to win anyone over

But yes, if you are comparing by Athlon's crappy naming system then the P4's nearly always come out on top. If you compare by similarly priced chips though, it's not as clear cut.

If ya looked at the tests, there were synthetic benchmarks and games were used to benchmark the two.

P.S. How should they be compared then?

astrofool

if u have the money get the p4, or better yet, athlon 64.

Putting 2000 on an athlon xp at this stage in its life is ludicrous, esp. as the p4's outperform them by so much, the XP3200+ has trouble keeping up with the 2.8ghz p4.

Ram wise, as long as it's over what is needed it does not matter, so putting ddr50000000000000 into a ddr400 machine is perfectly ok, in fact I have my ddr400 clocked at 266 right now(dual channel), so its in sync with the fsb.(xp 2200+).

It's not worth alot extra for the XT over the pro, just try and get the 256meg pro.

Monitors are probably better off being bought elsewhere than komplett, as their range is fairly crappy, maybe try www.dabs.com or as people have said elara.ie, dabs have a huge range. As a guide, aim for 1600x1200 @ 85hz and 1280x1024 @ 100hz on a 19" screen. Any less than that and it's the el cheapo brand. Also remember that the monitor will last ALOT longer than the pc in general.

Hard drive wise, u can't really go wrong with the raptor or seagate barracuda atm, so really depends on your budget. Remember to consider things like the mouse/keyboard/soundcard/speakers as well. Sound card wise, the best bet is probably the audigy 2 ZS which wasn't available on komplett last I looked. Also, make sure the case is a good brand, chieftec's are so passé these days , www.overclockers.co.uk do a nice selection.

tman

Originally posted by whosurpaddy
an their in dublin so u dont have to deal with a large shipping bill

it'd only cost €9.99 for a case with psu from komplett, using the new parcelforce delivery option. (compared to €40ish for dhl:eek: )

unkel

Originally posted by astrofool
or better yet, athlon 64

Was surprised this wasn't suggested before. With your budget you can easily go this route

Woden

with about 2000 euro to spend i'd go down the down the p4 or athlon 64 route. the 3.0Ghz pentium 4's are going for a nice price these days or you could save some money and buy a 2.4c or a 2.6c and overclock it no bother i'd say.

for cooling for a pentium4 system may i recommend the thermalright sp94 or slk947u and you can add your choice of up to a 92mm fan on top.

graphics card i've got the powercolour 9800pro reason i bought it over any other brand is for the simple reason that powercolor's 9800 pro is only 15euro's yes you read that right over the nonpro version (128mb). thats compared to about 100euros or so for hercules and sapphires offerings. i wouldn't go with the XT you just can't justify the performance gain for the price you pay.

Case wise i got myself a nice antec plusview 1000AMG from www.itdirect.ie however as mentioned www.overclockers.co.uk do nice cases and one that comes highly recommend is the coolmaster black widow for about 140 euro for which you can get black drives for the front and has a side window.

don't skimp on the psu i picked up a antec 480W trueblue, antec psu's come highly recommended and if you get a case with a transparent side (like the antec or the blackwidow) it looks quite cool

see here

http://homepage.eircom.net/~davepshanahan/109-0966_IMG.JPG

i picked up a 160gb seagate s-ata for mine, as seagates are meant to be quiet so i went for that. with regards to the raptors bear in mind there is 72gb versions out or coming out soon.

m/b options for the pentium check outs asus leading entry and abits ic7 max 3. other advice don't spend to long picking it out like i bloody did at the end of the day it will play freecell just as well as my pentium 3 did

BloodBath

Cheers lads. Some great advice there. Sorry about the delay in replying. I have pretty much made up my mind now.

if u have the money get the p4, or better yet, athlon 64.

Putting 2000 on an athlon xp at this stage in its life is ludicrous, esp. as the p4's outperform them by so much, the XP3200+ has trouble keeping up with the 2.8ghz p4.

Ram wise, as long as it's over what is needed it does not matter, so putting ddr50000000000000 into a ddr400 machine is perfectly ok, in fact I have my ddr400 clocked at 266 right now(dual channel), so its in sync with the fsb.(xp 2200+).

It's not worth alot extra for the XT over the pro, just try and get the 256meg pro.

Monitors are probably better off being bought elsewhere than komplett, as their range is fairly crappy, maybe try www.dabs.com or as people have said elara.ie, dabs have a huge range. As a guide, aim for 1600x1200 @ 85hz and 1280x1024 @ 100hz on a 19" screen. Any less than that and it's the el cheapo brand. Also remember that the monitor will last ALOT longer than the pc in general.

Hard drive wise, u can't really go wrong with the raptor or seagate barracuda atm, so really depends on your budget. Remember to consider things like the mouse/keyboard/soundcard/speakers as well. Sound card wise, the best bet is probably the audigy 2 ZS which wasn't available on komplett last I looked. Also, make sure the case is a good brand, chieftec's are so passé these days , www.overclockers.co.uk do a nice selection.

I'm going to go for the p4 3.0ghz and overclock it to 3.4ghz with a good heatsink and fan. I'd imagine the 64 bit athlon's are expensive and I haven't seen any benchmarks showing how well they perform yet.

As for ram what would be the point in buying higher clocked ram only for it to be downclocked by your mobo. Bit of a waste of money really. I'm getting 800mhz RD ram to go with an 800mhz mobo with the 800 mhz c.p.u.

I'm happy enough buying most things off komplett except for the monitor as their selection is s*ite. Cheers for the link.

Don't woory i'm not gonna buy a good machine and get a crap mouse, keyboard ect.
I chose the microsoft intellimose/icemat combo. A mate has it and it's sweet. Getting the trust silverline keyboard. Don't think I will bother with speakers. Just a good set of headphones. I have a good sound system anyway so i can hook it up to that.
What other soundcards are good on komplett if they don't have that one. Something reasonably priced with 5.1 preferably.

I hate bloody chieftec cases so there's not a fear of me buying one. Again kompletts selection here is pretty lame. There is one case I like(love) though. http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?action=info&sku=121276&p=&t=589&l=2&AvdID=1&CatID=13&GrpID=6&cks=PRL

At 211 euro without a p.s.u. it's a tad pricey but it is damn sexy. Kompletts pic is ****e. Here's a closer look http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=633

Only $160 in the states man i hate this country. :mad:

for cooling for a pentium4 system may i recommend the thermalright sp94 or slk947u and you can add your choice of up to a 92mm fan on top.

I was going to get the coolermaster aero 4 as a mte has one and they are quiet and high performing. Besides Komplett don't stock thermalrights.

Case wise i got myself a nice antec plusview 1000AMG from www.itdirect.ie however as mentioned www.overclockers.co.uk do nice cases and one that comes highly recommend is the coolmaster black widow for about 140 euro for which you can get black drives for the front and has a side window.

Yeah I was going to get a case like that but a mate of mine got a new p.c. recently and it's the same, black drives, blck case, side window with u.v. lights so I want something different. A nice brushed alluminium one like the coolermaster.

m/b options for the pentium check outs asus leading entry and abits ic7 max 3. other advice don't spend to long picking it out like i bloody did at the end of the day it will play freecell just as well as my pentium 3 did

I'm going to get the Asus P4C800 as it is the highest performing p4 mobo on the market it seems. It would want to be for 180 fu*cking euro.


Cheers again lads. I will post some pics when the sexy bit*h arrives. I'd say it would be about 3 weeks as I doubt komplett will have everything I'm looking for in stock.


BloodBath

whosurpaddy

hey bloodbath
u wouldnt post up a list of everythin ur buyin (along with prices & komplett sku's would be handy) as im building a very similar spec/price machine for a mate atm & will probably go for a lot of the same stuff as you.

couple of questions tho.

is it worth going for an s-ata hard drive over the ata100 8mb model seagate? are they much quicker/noisier.

as regards the processor question, a couple of you were saying he should go for an athlon 64, but afaik u cant just load up windows on a 64 but processor, an same foe existing software, am i right here. an is there a huge gap between an athlon 64 an a p4 3ghz?

oh btw, why rd-ram over normal ddr? again is it worth the price diff if the are at the same clock speed?

BloodBath

Sure so far the list goes as follows.

Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz Boxed PC800
- Socket PGA478, 512kB "Northwood" Backordered
(lead time: 3 days) 308.47

Asus P4C800/DELUXE mainboard S478/800mhz
- I875P, Dual DDR, S-ATA, GBLAN, snd, Raid 3
stocked 189.23

2 X Corsair PC800-40 RIMM 256MB, 40ns
- 16Meg x 16, non-ECC, Intel 850E w/16bit 1
stocked 231.24

PowerColor Radeon 9800XT 256MB DDR
- AGP, ATI 9800XT, DVI-I, TV-Out, Retail 5 pcs
2003-11-29
(unconfirmed) 555.55

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 120GB S-ATA
- S-ATA/150, harddisk 8MB cach ST3120026AS 4
stocked 112.61

LG DVD drive IDE 16x/48x (GDR-8161BB)
- Bulk version 4
stocked 39.70

LG CD-writer IDE 52x/24x/52x GCE-8520BN
- "Super-Link" w/NERO SW, Internal Bulk 8
stocked 46.04

Cooler Master Wave Master Kabinett
- TAC-T01 Sølv Aluminium u/ power ATX 29 pcs
2003-11-18
(unconfirmed) 211.68

Cooler Master AERO 4 INTEL
- Pure Copper Cooler, Socket 478, 3.2GHz++ 99 pcs
2003-11-18
(unconfirmed) 37.97

Microsoft Intelli Mouse Expl 3.0 Bundle
- Mus PS/2&USB Retail. + Icemat black 10
stocked 46.83

Trust Silverline Direct Access Keyboard
- PS/2, Retail 50-99
stocked 29.11

Chieftec PSU ATX 360W 2 fans
- Power supply for P4/AMD CPUs w/PFC 3
stocked 63.50

That comes to a total of 1871.93 before delivery charges and minus a monitor as I will probably get that somewhere else.

This is close to my final order. I will cut back on price somewhere a bit as a decent monitor will cost about 350 euro + delivery on my komplett order brings me about 250 euro over budit. But I could easily get that back. The case is a bit pricey so I might shop elsewhere for a similar but cheaper one for about 100 euro. Thats 110 off the price already so I will be pretty much on my budit of 2000.


As for the s-ata question. They are not any faster as far as I can tell but the wire is smaller allowing better circulation inside. I hate those f*cking ribbon wires.

The athlon 64's are gonna cost you over 500 euro so they really aren't worth it. They are backwards compatible with 32 bit technology and can go between the 2 easily. Windows xp 64 is coming out soon but they will still work with 2000 and xp.

For benchmarks and info click http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTI0

I'd go with the P4 3.0 m8. Best value for money and with that fan+heatsink you could easily overclock it to 3.4ghz and get performance similar to an unclocked athlone 64 without paying twice the price.

As for ram it depends on how much your willing to spend. RD ram is better than DDR it's just a tad more expensive but it's coming down in price. The fastest DDR at the moment runs at 500mhz while the fastest RD runs at 1066mhz. You do the math. I'm getting the 800mhz RD so everything will be in sync.

When are you ordering and whats your budit??



BloodBath

whosurpaddy

cheers for the info mate. my budget is around 2000 aswell, but mate could stretch to more if i wanted, probly wont. i have only started to compile my list/ do research, so i havent actually got a list yet. ill post it here when i do.

the first thing i noticed about ur list is your gonna spend 2k on a pc, but not get a dvd burner:eek: was this an oversight?

astrofool

32bit software runs perfectly on athlon 64, in fact an athlon 64 3200+ outperforms the p4 3.2ghz. But yes it is pricey, probably a bit early to get them yet.

If you're going to be getting a sound card on komplett, you'll be making a compromise unfortunately, i'd recommend maybe using dabs.com for the sound card and monitor, and any other bits komplett don't stock.

Also, DVD/CD-R combo drives are now available, that do 16x dvd and 52x cd-r, would be handy if you were planning on getting a dvd-r in the future, as you would have to get rid of one of the other drives.

RDram runs faster because it's bus is narrower, also, rdram is pretty much a dead entity in the PC market.

astrofool

oh, and the ic7-max3 is definitely the best p4 board about at the moment, and has 6 s-ata ports on board, very handy in the long term. the Asus you selected, and IC7-G would be second.

BloodBath

Yeah I have been planning this buy and researching for the last couple of months. I think I finally have it. Christ my head will explode if I look at any more reviews or benchmarks.

As for the d.v.d. it's not so much an oversight, more trying to stick to my budget. A d.v.d. burner would add 100 euro to it and it's already stretched as it is. A c.d. burner will do for now. I can add a d.v.d. burner at alater stage.

I might squeeze it in there somewhere instead of the c.d. burner.

The reason RD ram is a dead entity is because it's still too expensive. It is faster and better than ddr. Christ it's nearly twice the price but i'm willing to pay it for it's speed.

I only choose the best for the captains table YARRR!


BloodBath

superfly

heres a site with AMD 64 comparisons
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1818&p=1
are you getting a pendrive or are you sticking to burning cds?

astrofool

rdram is not faster/better than ddr, higher price does not always equal higher performance, and rdram's high price is more due to it's larger die size, and higher operating speeds, than anything else.

Re: dvd-burner, sorry if I meant to imply you should get one in that bundle, was saying that there are combo dvd/cd-r drives available now which are as fast as standalone's, should u want to add a dvd-burner later, and saves money in the short term.

Woden

hey bloodbath hang on a second, you wanna overclock it to 3.4Ghz yeah.

The multipliers on pentium chips are locked all you can play around with is the FSB. for a 3.0Ghz chip with a 200mhz quad pumped bus you should have a muliplier of 15 i think

to bring it to 3.4Ghz i think you will need a FSB of about 227 (a conservative overclock on p4's i think)

anywho the point i wanna make is the ram you getting is only rated to 800mhz so if you get that ram you will have to run it asynchronously or overclock it. Now i'm not sure what the story is with p4's and run asynchronously and i know even less about it running asynchronously with rdram so its something you might want to look into.

thats why people buy ddr ram that is specced higher then there processor. i got 217mhz corsair for my 166mhz barton, that barton now runs at 200mhz and so does the ram and its rated to higher if i want it to higher. anywho thought it should be something you should take into consideration i will stop my hangover type waffling now

BloodBath

Cheers for the advice on ram lads. I looked into it a bit more and the 800mhz RD doesn't perform better than the ddr4000 but the 1066mhz does but it's about two and half times the price so it's not really worth it. Think I might just get the ddr4000.

Do most p4 boards have ddr capabilities? I was going to get the Asus p4c800 but i'm not sure if it takes ddr ram.

Anybody know?


Bloodbath

Sir Random

Afaik, all P4 boards support DDR. An 800Mhz board will support DDR400 but check the specs if you're using faster RAM than that.

Woden

so if you plan to overclock perhaps you should buy something more then 400mhz ram (pc3200) perhaps pc3500 or higher.

good ram manufacturers are corsair and ocz to name a couple.

Mushkin also does really good ram called level II ram. It has very tight timings which is good. and is uses winbond BH-5 chips which is apparently the doggies bollix (i think there used on my corsair)

anywho ocz and mushkin ram can be gotten from www.shop4memory.ie (free delivery)

corsair stuff can be gotten from komplett

BloodBath

I meant pc4000 not ddr 4000. pc4000 runs at 500mhz and is the fastest ddr available at the mo. It's alright I think komplett stock corsair pc4000 so I won't have to go elsewhere.

Cheers for the advice anywho.


BloodBath

astrofool

all boards support pc200+ ram. pc500 is not an official spec, and only gets used when overclocking, and even then other things can hold back the overclock.

You cannot get rdram 800mhz fsb boards, the highest rdram supported was 533mhz.

You sound REALLY REALLY confused about memory at the moment.

so:

all i875 motherboards ONLY support ddr ram, all you have to do is check that the board is an i875/canterwood board (model name/code name).

DDR ram runs on a 64 bit bus. The speed of ddr is determined by its rating. The highest rated ddr right now is pc3200 or pc400 (both are the same thing). That means either: 3200 megabytes a second or 200mhz x 2(double). pc500 therefore is ram that can run at 250mhz.

i875 utilises a 128bit memory bus, so uses dual ddr (64 bit each). Using pc3200 ram means you get a memory bandwidth of 6400 or 6.4 gigabytes a second.

Rdram is a serial based memory technology. The first rdram was called pc600/700/800. A while ago pc1066 came out. This number is double the frequency of the memory. So pc800 rdram runs at 400mhz (double what DDR pc400 runs at). However, rdram has a much lower bus of 16 bits, so really the speed of pc800 rdram is 1600 megabytes a second. Initial pentium 4 motherboards used dual channel rdram to give it a total of 3200mb/s which matches the p4 perfectly (as the dual ddr does now). When the p4 moved to a 533mhz bus, pc1066 rdram was released, which also matched the bus frequency (2 x 2100mb/s = 4200mb/s). 32bit rdram modules were also available, but they were used in single channel environment (essentially the chip got divided into two 16 bit channels).

As you can see dual ddr delivers 2200mb/s more than the fastest officially supported intel rdram p4 board. The high price of rdram along with rambus trying to sue everyone, led to rdram disappearing off the map as a p4 memory format (AMD never used it). Rambus itself was expensive to produce as they were not able to test a modules speed until the chips were soldered in place, as well as having a 10% overhead on die space over standard sdram and ddr due to extra terminators and the high operating speed.

SiS is soon releasing a new rambus board using quad channel pc1600 rdram if I remember correctly, but I would doubt SiS' ability to ever make this a consumer board and it will more than likely only be used in the server environment, if it is seen at all (SiS do not have a good name as a server board chip manufacturer).

What it all boils down to for you is that the only ram u should get is two sticks of matching ddr. Get the speed you think u might want to overclock to, but remember that a memory module can go as low a speed as you want it to.

There is no problem running pc500 at pc200 speeds.

BloodBath

You sound REALLY REALLY confused about memory at the moment.

so:

all i875 motherboards ONLY support ddr ram, all you have to do is check that the board is an i875/canterwood board (model name/code name).

DDR ram runs on a 64 bit bus. The speed of ddr is determined by its rating. The highest rated ddr right now is pc3200 or pc400 (both are the same thing). That means either: 3200 megabytes a second or 200mhz x 2(double). pc500 therefore is ram that can run at 250mhz.

Don't patronise me. I'm not stupid mate. The highest rating ddr is not pc3200. Pc400, don't you mean ddr400? Yes pc 3200 and ddr400 are the same thing but I said pc4000 which is ddr500 and certainly not the same thing as pc3200.

I was asking about rd ram which is what I knew **** all about as I thought the higher fsb meant it ran faster.


BloodBath

astrofool

pc4000 which is ddr500 and certainly not the same thing as pc3200.

in fact it is.

Latest Jedec spec only has ddr speeds up to pc3200 level. pc4000/ddr500 is EXACTLY the same standard as pc3200 ram, except it has been verified to run at an overclocked speed. It is not an official standard, but is used when people are overclocking their pc's front side bus. ALL pc4000/ddr500 ram will work perfectly as pc3200 if you want to set it at that (in fact if you let it choose speed by SPD it will default to pc3200).

Also, fsb is not the same as memory speed, as memory can run synchronously, or asynchronously, also a single stick of pc3200 only supplies half the bandwidth on a 800mhz fsb board, hence why two are used.

The Athlon 64 does not use an fsb at all