BleepingComputer.com: Cutting RAM MHz in half, can I turn up the timings?

My HP Mini 1000 came standard with some off-brand RAM rated for 800MHz, but due to the motherboard/processor it's capped at 400MHz, effectively cutting its speed in half. I'm getting a high-quality RAM stick put into it soon and I'm curious if I should be able to turn down the timings, and if that would have any noticeable performance benefit.

I'm also curious if, since it's running at half-speed, I can turn down the voltages at all to save some juice.

This post has been edited by Ryan 3000: 14 November 2010 - 06:48 PM

Are you sure about that? As far as I'm aware the Atoms run 667 or 800 memory normally as per spec. Where are you finding the 400MHz figure? If it's a bus speed/clock rate, then DDR2 800 is clocked at 400MHz (ie runs on a 400MHz bus).

Platypus, on 14 November 2010 - 07:54 PM, said:

My only source on the 400MHz figure is Everest but I'm pretty sure it's accurate. It corroborated those numbers across its analysis of the motherboard's FSB, the Atom (400 x 6.66), and the RAM speed. If this number is true, what does it mean for overclocking/underclocking potential?

Which version of Everest? The original Free 2.20 is a bit baffled by an Atom and does talk about 400MHz. Ver 4.60 Ultimate reports my N270 more reasonably, as does SIW which gives 532MHz FSB - the Mini 1000 is using an N270 correct? They can utilise DDR2 533 or 667 it seems:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Mini_1000

If DDR2 800 is fitted, then I guess it's possible timings could be tweaked (bit surprised if an HP BIOS gave that option actually), but I doubt if an Atom is going to notice any difference. It'll hardly be pushing the memory bandwidth. If you've taken the opportunity to increase the RAM to 2GB, then I'd guess the benefit from that would outweigh timings.

Ah that's true I hadn't considered that Platypus. I'm using the old Everest Free version that still barks about Athlons and Pentium EE's. Yeah, you're probably right. In that case I'll stick with what I've got. I won't mess around with a laptop that wouldn't be much changed by such an upgrade.

That sounds reasonable to me.