Compatibility cheat sheet

S

sector2814

New Member
i purchased 2 sticks of memory that looking at neweggs site told me was compatible (given all the specs on their site) turns out the only thing that wasnt on their site was which chipset it was compatible with, which was the p55 not the h55 that i have :confused: . so to make things less complicated im looking for compatibility info, like what to look at to know its compatible. so far i have this understanding.

Motherboard/processor- same socket, and intel mobo goes with intel cpu and same with amd, has to have interfaces compatible with all other devices

memory-chipset, level such as ddr3, speed such as 1333mhz, non/buffered, non/ecc, the pin type, capacity, processor, mobo?

harddrive- sata or ide

optical drive- sata or ide

case- mobo being atx/micro atx etc

power supply- wattage needs to be enough to power your whole system (how would you figure this out?)

sound/wireless/video cards- interface to mobo interface

am i wrong in any of these subjects, or am i missing anything? this would help a lot
 
i have an asus p7h55 m lx with an intel i3 550 cpu
and i bought this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231276&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-RSSDailyDeals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=4169961&SID=1ilyvc09dbb5l it all looks fine to me but when just before i installed it i checked the g skill site and my mobo was not under the "qualified motherboards list, i noticed that the asus products were mostly the p55 chipset.
basically i overlooked it and jumped the gun ugh
 
i was doing a little more research and got on the asus site to check out their supported memory lists for my mobo and took on of the g skill memory product numbers that was supported, typed it into the g skill site and what do i find? the asus motherboards that are supported according to g skill, are still only the p55 chipset mobos. so im guessing that the memory i have will still work. does anyone have an answer for my dilemma? and just to clear things up what all should i look at for compatibility?
 
To my knowledge, some motherboard manufacturers test several different models of RAM in their systems and then recommend these specific models. This does not mean the memory suggested by the manufacturer is the only RAM that works. As StrangleHold said, it should be fine.
 
^^ Yeah. Pretty much any DDR3 memory will work in any motherboard, provided the speeds match up. So if the max speed your motherboard supports is 1600MHz, thats the fastest RAM you can get. the highest "official" speed is DDR3 1333. Anything higher is considered to be an "overclock", even though the RAM is rated for that speed. So on a board that says "DDR3 1066/1333/1866(OC)", you could run RAM with a stock speed of up to 1866MHz and be perfectly ok.

Also something to watch out for is voltage -- sometimes motherboards won't support high-voltage RAM.

Here is a 'cheat sheet'

Hard drives and opticals drives use IDE or SATA, nowadays, its SATA. The current fastest SATA is 6GB/s, also known as SATA3.

Intel CPUs go with Intel motherboards, AMD with AMD motherboards. Intel uses sockets LGA 1566, 1366, and 775. 775 is older, used with your C2D and pentium, and older. the core i CPUs use either 1566 or 1366, make sure not to get the wrong one. AMD sockets are AM3 and AM2+. AM2+ will take the older AMD CPUs that are socket AM2, as well as AM2+ and AM3. However, DDR3 RAM is uncomapitble with a AM2+ socket motherboard, you must have AM3. AM3 is the most current AMD socket.

nVidia uses SLi technology to run mulitple cards at once, AMD (ATI)'s equivalent is CrossFire. Make sure your motherboard supports the one you want. Also, it is generally a good idea to use nVidia cards in motherboards that support SLi, and vice versa for CrossFire, the reason being that you can just buy the same card again, in order to crossfire.

Cases come in several form factors -- ATX, mATX (micro ATX) and ITX. I think there may be more but I am not sure.

PSUs need to have enough juice to run your system. When purchasing a video card it is good to look at the requirements for that. If it says 500W, then it means that you need a PSU with 500W, as a minimum. This will include your average system consisting og a 65/95w CPU, a hard drive or two, and an optical drive or two. If you have a 125W CPU, an aftermarket cooler, 5 hard drives, and 4 optical drives, you will need to tag 50-100W to compenstate. My rule-of-thumb is to get a PSU that will allow for expanablity. If I need 500W, i get 600 or 650W, so I can upgrade my video card/CPU without getting a new PSU. Also make sure that when purchasing your PSU, it will have the proper connectors. If your video card requires an 8-pin connector, MAKE SURE THAT THE PSU HAS ONE. Otherwise you will have to either get a cable, or you will be screwed. Make sure there are enough SATA and molex connections for all your fans/opticals/HDDs.

Add-on cards general come in PCI or PCIe x1. the x1 slot is the really short slot. Most add-on cards are PCI, make sure to shop accordingly to how many add-on cards you plan on having, preferably with a little room to spare.

Also remember, that if you have a video card with the PCIe x16 2.0 slot, that your motherboard has such a slot. Keep in mind that you can stick a PCIe x16 GPU into your motherboards PCIe x16 2.0 slot, but you cant do it the other way around. Just like USB will fit into a USB2 port, however, you need that USB2 port if you want to use a USB2 device.

I hope that clears up your questions and didnt confuse you.
 
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31!m!n80r said:
Example, the motherboard says max speed RAM is 1600MHz (O.C), 1333MHz, it means you can put 1333MHz RAM in it, and over clock it to 1600MHz, but you cannot put RAM in with a STOCK speed of 1600Mhz. Hope that makes sense.
Click to expand...

Hold on a bit, that isn't quite right. As per the standard for DDR3, the highest "official" speed is DDR3 1333. Anything higher is considered to be an "overclock", even though the RAM is rated for that speed. So on a board that says "DDR3 1066/1333/1866(OC)", you could run RAM with a stock speed of up to 1866MHz and be perfectly ok.
 
Drenlin said:
Hold on a bit, that isn't quite right. As per the standard for DDR3, the highest "official" speed is DDR3 1333. Anything higher is considered to be an "overclock", even though the RAM is rated for that speed. So on a board that says "DDR3 1066/1333/1866(OC)", you could run RAM with a stock speed of up to 1866MHz and be perfectly ok.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, edited my post.
 
first off i want to say thanks, this has cleared a bunch of things up for me. hmmm so DRENLIN, do you mean that ddr3 can actually run at higher speeds than 1333 but since its only rated by manufacturers at ddr3 1333 it technically is overclocking or am i looking at it the wrong way?
 
sector2814 said:
first off i want to say thanks, this has cleared a bunch of things up for me. hmmm so DRENLIN, do you mean that ddr3 can actually run at higher speeds than 1333 but since its only rated by manufacturers at ddr3 1333 it technically is overclocking or am i looking at it the wrong way?
Click to expand...

If you buy RAM that's rated at 1600, then you're not overclocking it by running at 1600...there's no risk of instability or anything like that, though C2 AMD chips aren't fond of higher speeds. (1600 is fine on anything, and is what most people go for)

When DDR3 first came out the highest JDEC specification was DDR3 1333, so that is what Intel/AMD and, more importantly, the motherboard manufacturers initially rated their memory controllers for. The fastest JDEC spec now is DDR3 2133, which is obviously quite a bit faster, and while the processors' memory controllers can mostly handle the higher speeds, motherboards are still playing catch-up. The ones that list the speeds above 1333 as "OC" do so, I think, because the RAM is rated above what the processors' memory controllers are rated at, but like I said, the processors were only rated that low because there wasn't really anything faster when they were designed.

I may be a little off on some of those points, but the bottom line is that if you buy a RAM rated above 1333 and it's within your motherboard's specs, it'll be just fine.
 
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ooohhhhhh gotcha, so if you were to buy ram rated at a slower speed than what your mobo/processor was rated at, it wouldnt hurt it, but just create a bottleneck effect in a sense that everything would be running at the rated speed and when it came time to run through the memory it would slow the whole process down? sorry if im asking too many questions, im trying to really get a good grasp on computer function and processes
 
More or less, yeah. In the sense of the memory subsystem, think of the RAM itself like the engine of a car and the CPU and motherboard like the driver and chassis. Does that make sense?

There's no such thing as too many questions man...the more you learn, the better. It's actually very encouraging to see people want to learn about this stuff. That's what separates an enthusiast from someone who just wants to put their machine together. The latter just wants to know everything will work together...the former wants to know why and how it all works together. If there's anything you're not clear on, just ask, and we'll be happy to explain it. :)
 
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