Tradesman1 :
What it's advertised at is what it should run at, if your CPU can carry that freq in DRAM and if the mobo can (though the CPU is the more important part of the equations, for example 2133 and up generally always takes at least a K series Intel CPU, locked Intel and few AMD CPUs can run 2133
Those are good points; the quality of the CPU's RAM controller and the
nature of the mbd will also make a diffrence. It's certainly easier to
achieve a nice memory oc if only some of the RAM slots are used;
likewise, with some mbds one may only be able to reach the RAM's basic
rated speed & not much more if all the RAM slots are filled. It depends
on the mbd quality and the variability of each CPU. I've been lucky
perhaps, I had a good mbd (Asus Maximums IV Extreme) and my particular
2700K handles max RAM very well even when the CPU is at 5GHz.
PSU quality matters too.
Note though that excessive RAM speed is probably the worst thing upon
which to waste money with respect to choosing cost effective system
upgrades. In general, a better CPU, GPU or disk/SSD gives more of a speed
boost, depending on the application. For gaming, I doubt you'd ever
notice the difference between RAM running at 1866 vs. 2133+. I'd say it's
better to have (for example) 16GB @ 1866 than 8GB @ 2133.
If you can afford 2133 though, then go for it. 8) Beyond that however,
probably not worth spending the extra, unless as I say it may mean it's
easier to reach the lesser 2133 speed because the RAM has more headroom.
One other quirk is pricing. When I was searching for suitable 32GB kits,
I found that the TridentX 2400 kit was cheaper than other 2133 kits, so
there was that incentive too.
On a personal note, I've never been keen on Kingston RAM. I had a 4GB
DDR3/2000 kit from Kingston which I found to be really awful. Replaced
with a Mushkin kit and what a difference! I couldn't even get the Kingston
kit to run at its rated 2000 speed, whereas the Mushkin kit ran just fine.
These days I generally stick with GSkill or Mushkin, though often the
latter is harder to find. Most of my recent purchases, including all the
larger capacity kits I've bought, have been GSkill. Don't know about
Corsair, not bought any of their products yet, but people seem to like them.
Ian.
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