That is a motherboard specific problem. There are vogons members who run 4GB RAM at DDR400 in s939, probably even at 1T, but with ECC memory ( Re: Socket 939 dual core build. Decisions, decisions.... ). Asus K8N-E (s754) also allows max DDR333 with 2x 1GB modules, but it is an AGP board so it doesn't matter, if needed there is a workaround.

On Athlon 64 memory always runs in sync with the CPU. Memory divisor is chosen indirectly and typically not visible in BIOS. The memory setting in BIOS influences the divisor, but CPU frequency multiplier influences it as well. You could get around this problem by increasing base frequency.

2209Mhz CPU, 260Mhz base, 8.5x multiplier, HT 1040 (4x), memory divisor 11 (select DDR333 in BIOS, real clock will be 400) - this is the closest you can get to stock clocks, very mild HT OC - should have no effect. In this way you should be able to run 4x 1GB at DDR400. These settings were identified in Re: Battle of the platforms: socket 754!

I have read that topic and nowhere is mention the first generation of Athlon 64! I have not reached dual cores yet; I am interested in getting Clawhammer 3500 to work with 4 dual sided RAM modules at 400 MHz!
I tested with Newcastle and the problem remains: with 2 modules I got DDR-400 at 3-3-3-8 CR 1T, with 4 modules I got DDR-333 at 3-3-3-8 CR 2T!

Abit KN8 SLI getting some TLC; there is no TIM just that rubber like material that you see in the pictures!

First tests done with Athlon 64 3500 Manchester revision with 4gb of RAM and geforce 9800gtx. As I already know that 2004 games run OK I started testing 2005 games.
First was Age of empires 3 that I thought should run smooth on such a system; I started a skirmish with the maximum number of AI players and the experience was not good: after half of hour the game slowed down to a crawl! Well, I thought AoE3 is badly optimised let's run Quake 4. To my surprise the experience is very bad with lows in the 20's and average in the 30-40's! And that is without AA - just ultra quality with advanced settings turned on to compare with the radeon x1950 pro! 9800GTX should run at 60FPS locked with these settings but it seems that CPU matters a lot in this game!
Also in FEAR the in-game test shows practically no difference between 1024*768 ultra quality, AA = 4x, SS on and 1600*1200 with the same settings indicating a strong CPU bottleneck!
It seems that the second generation of directx9 games require besides humongous amount of RAM and a powerful video card a very good processor!

Games from 2005 tend to be CPU bottlenecked, but a powerful GPU is still able to save the day.

s754 at 2.2Ghz with GTX 275 - Re: Battle of the platforms: socket 754!

Maybe try a few other GPUs before committing to one. I originally had GeForce 9800 GT, tried also 9800 GTX, GTX 260 and ended up with GTX 275. SATA ports must not be completely blocked. At least 2 must be usable.

Abit boards for socket 939 have a very good layout, no SATA port is blocked off!
I used a brand new Kingston SSD for a fresh install of XP, no radeon drivers were ever installed, geforce 197.77 installed form the get go!
I suspect that msi afterburner, fraps and background Windows processes take a lot of CPU power; in period correct reviews I read that a single frame rate monitoring program was used usually fraps. I will test with Athlon 64 X2 4200 which is a 3500*2 to see what results I will get!

Installed Athlon 64 4200 which is exactly a 3500 X 2. The results are unbelievable!
Athlon 34 3500:
1. Quake 4
2. Fear

Athlon 64 X2 4200
3. Quake 4
4. Fear

Quake 4 is one of the earliest games that support dual cores processors: it shows a 24% (!!!) improvement over the single core. Fear is a single threaded game yet it still shows a 14% better result with the dual core! No period correct review ever showed such an improvement when they reviewed Athlon 64 X2 back in 2005! Age of empires 3 became playable with the dual core. It is impossible that just one year later games would show such a drastic uplift in performance with the first consumer dual cores!
Actually Quake 4 has become very playable with averages around 50 -60 FPS and it does not drop below 30 anymore! Also Fear feels smoother!
Waiting for others for confirmation!
Athlon 64 3500 - wrong screenshot selected the first time around, this are the results for 1024*768 max details, SS on, AA 4x:

It doesn't surprise me.

Athlon 34 3500+ has only 512KB L2 cache, so it will be a bit slower than CPU with 1MB L2 cache. AMD gave us 2 glued memory controllers and took away cache to save cost. You also run at CL3 due to using 4 memory sticks. I don't have identical GTX+, just GTX so I can't verify it but the results make sense. Slightly worse than GTX 275. If you put in a better GPU, you will get slightly better results. In FEAR I didn't use SS except until the end as you didn't use it with Radeon X1950 Pro either. I also enabled HW audio mixing and EAX 2.0, not sure about the effect on FPS.

X2 CPU helps a bit, but these early games don't benefit from dual core that much.

In Quake 4 I normally use 1280x1024 with 4x AA (8x overloads the GPU) and ultra quality. Frame rate is practically locked at 60fps. I don't see fps drops.

In Age of Empires III I use 1280x960 with maximum details. After one hour of easy game and defeating 2 enemies (1 ally is alive) I get 30-60 fps. Lows are reached when looking at my own army of 50 units. Normally it is about 40 fps.