I have an Intel Pentium Dual Core E6300 2.8GHz processor (1066 MHz FSB, 2 MB - L2 Cache, x10.5 multiplier, 266.67 MHz base clock)
I have an ASUS P5KPL-AM EPU motherboard (FSB - 800/1066/1333/1066[OC] MHz, RAM - Max 4GB DDR2 667/800/1066[OC]) based on the Intel G31 architecture.
I have 2 GB of Princeton DDR2-800 MHz RAM running at 5-5-5-15.
I've been reading quite a few posts on the forums and still am kind of confused about how the whole equation works - the RAM frequencies, the CPU FSB, the FSBRAM ratio, etc etc
Which is why I still don't know whether I can squeeze some performance out of my current setup or not. Can I ?
I believe my FSBRAM ratio is around 266.67 MHz:400 MHz = around 2:3.
A question that I'd appreciate an answer to is - If I increase my base clock from 266.67, does that not affect my FSBRAM ratio ? and hence does it not affect the performance of my RAM ? Is there a chance I could damage my RAM by making it run faster if I overclock the base clock of the CPU ?
Also, I'd like for someone to point out where and how I can do some overclocking to increase the performance of my CPU / RAM etc.
Alternatively, also tell me, how much of a performance increase difference would there be, if, instead of overclocking my current system I was to exchange my motherboard and DDR2 RAM for a DDR3 RAM equipped motherboard and 4 GB of DDR3 RAM (which would cost me around US $85-95 I'm guessing). For example, if, by overclocking I'm getting a performance increase of 20% roughly, what would the performance increase of the exchange be ? more than 50% ?