neiroatopelcc :
I'm seeing a lot of posts with a varying degree of quality contents on this page, most of it doesn't seem worth replying to. However I do have a question noone else seems to have had.
What actually is/are Boot Straps? I would consider myself having fair knowledge of intel 3 series, yet this is the first time I've heard this term, and the page on which it's mentioned didn't really enlighten me. Is there a good article somewhere on the net detailing the specifics? And is it something one can change, or is it simply 'choosing by itself'? ie. is there a 'iecccpod' switch (I made that name up) that needs to be set to 4 in the bios or is it based on the fsb specified, or on the cpu chip installed?
Everything on a system runs at a pre-determined clock speed, unless a part is overclocked. That includes the Chipset Northbridge. The boot strap determines the ratio of FSB clock to Northbridge clock. It sets the FSB:Northbridge ratio. You're already familiar with FSB
RAM ratios as FSB:CPU Core multpliers, the Boot Strap setting sets the Northbridge clock speed in a similar fashion.
Using various boot straps, you get the same Northbridge clock for different FSB clocks. FSB clocks of 200, 266, and 333 all result in the same Northbridge clock so long as the boot strap is set to the corresponding speed (200, 266, 333). Any bus speed that doesn't correspond to a "standard setting" for the chipset will either overclock or underclock the Northbridge.
Most boards won't let you manually choose the boot strap, but will automatically select the "most appropriate" boot strap for any chosen bus speed. For example, if you overclock your 266MHz FSB clock to around 320MHz, the 333MHz boot strap will automatically be chosen by the motherboard.
The problem is that Intel doesn't support "every available" memory ratio for "every available" boot strap, so that setting certain memory speeds will force a different boot strap than the "best" one. In particular, choosing DDR3-1333 (667MHz clock) with FSB-1600 (400MHz clock) requires a memory ratio that isn't supported by the 400MHz boot strap. The 667:400 DRAM:FSB clock ratio IS supported by FSB-800 at 333:200 (DDR2-667 and FSB-800). So setting DDR3-1333 with FSB-1600 forces the 200MHz boot strap (FSB-800) and overclocks the Northbridge by 100%.