From a newbie, upgraded my CPU- what about the RAM?

[joseschmoe]

Another one from a newbie. On my big box retailer desktop I swapped out my original intel q6600 (2.4GHz) to the q9650 (3GHz). so far so good. I plan to overclock so I'm definitely coming back to this forum to get some guidance from you experienced hands out there. From reading newegg reviews looks like it can easily OC to 3.4 and keep it stable. At $340 it's not bad for what I understand it closely matches perf of its extreme big brothers at a fraction of the price. For someone who's budget conscious (I didn't want to swap my motherboard) i hope it's not a bad deal.

 

However, the reason for this thread is I looked at my current installed RAM. 3GB of DDR2. CPU-Z tells me on my CPU tab I have a rated FSB of 1333MHz (my motherboard supports that) and it also tells me I have Bus Speed of 333.3MHz. I'm not sure why the difference is.

 

Then I looked at the memory tab of CPU-Z and it tells me my RAM is dual channel, symmetric, DRAM freq of 333.3MHz. This seems to coincide with Bus speed of 333.3MHz. Hmm?!

Then using Wopti it further states my RAM is DDR2 667 (PC5300) which I'm not sure how this correlates to correlates to 333.3MHz.

 

First question is how do I consolidate the info on my RAM presented to me by CPU-Z and that of Wopti? Consistent or contradictory? What is my real RAM speed?

 

Secondly based on the specs I just provided is RAM a bottleneck here? If yes then what should I upgrade it to? Note. I have 32 bit vista so going beyond 3GB RAM is not an option for me.

 

I just want to get more bang for the buck based on what I have.

 

After I get the scoop on my RAM, OCing will be next then after that swapping out my 7200 rpm HD for a 10,000rpm HD. Then putting in a 1GB NVIDIA. But that's down the road. First thing's first.

 

Thanks all!