Hardware compatability question, memory, motherboard, and cpu

Hello everyone, I have a quick question. I've been browsing over intel's site and looking at their new 875p chipset, and it says it supports a processor with a 800/533FSB and ddr400/333 memory. My question is, can you use any combination you want as in a p4 800fsb and ddr333 (even if it's not optimal), or how about 533FSB and ddr400 memory? Whats the general rule on using mismatching meory and cpu FSB?

Thanks, Dan

You can mix and match. Best performance comes from matching, but ram should slow down to match if you have too ram that is faster than your fsb.

Thank you for your response. I have another question that is similar. Can you also mix and match the motherboards FSB speed and the CPUs FSB speed? For instance, say you have a new intel 875p chipset motherboard that supports 800/533 FSB speeds, you buy a new p43.0 that have 800mhz FSB, but you already have 2 sticks of DDR133 ram. So your motherboard and CPU support a 200 mhz FSB quad pumped, but your ram only supports 133 mhz. Would it be possible to downclock your motherboard to a 133 mhz FSB (which it is rated for) but continue to use your 800 mhz compatable CPU (not at it's full throttle mind you)? Are you allowed have the CPUs rated FSB speed less than the rated motherboards FSB speed it is running at?

Thanks, Dan

You could probably do that, but I don't know why you would. If you have 133 ram (pc2100), it will work at its speed, and the fsb will be faster. Most likely no need to downclock.