RAM faster than what cpu supports

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pcbuilder8

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Sep 24, 2014
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Hey Guys

My computer has a AMD Athlon II x4 645 CPU overclocked to 3.30 GHz, but while overclocking it the ram speed also increased from 1333 MHz to 1419 MHz. I heard on other forums that AMD CPU only supports RAM speeds up to 1333 MHz and if its higher it will damage the memory controller. So I was just wondering if its fine that way or I should change it back. I was able to overclock it differently by changing the multipliers of the RAM and CPU but in windows properties it shows the CPU speed as 2.8 GHz but CPU-Z shows it correctly.

system specs:

windows 7 64-bit
AMD Athlon II x4 640 @ 3.30 GHz (3.1 stock)
4 GB G.Skill DDR3-1600 PC3 12800 (2GBx2)
Gigabyte Radeon HD 6870
Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3 motherboard
500 GB seagate HDD
 
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The Ram Controller/CPU will not be damaged. If anything, the RAM sticks are the ones that would most likely be damaged but pushing it a few MHz above the supported won't really make any difference. Running at higher speeds without adjusting the voltage would just cause the computer to become...
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Cats869

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Aug 16, 2014
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It's probably better to leave the RAM clock speeds to what they normally are or 1333 MHz. You probably will not notice any improvement at all by raising the memory clock speed unless doing heavy load work like video/animation rendering editing. I never heard of the memory controller being damaged because of RAM sticks clocked higher than what the motherboard/CPU supports but its probably damaged because of the higher clock speed and that may mean higher voltage meaning higher chance of damage.
 
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pcbuilder8

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Sep 24, 2014
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I can't remember the last time I updated the bios. I don't really care how fast the ram is running at but I was wondering if the settings i have now are fine or if they will do any damage. Thank you everyone for your answers.
 
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pcbuilder8

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Sep 24, 2014
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The RAM was running at 1333 default, BUT the CPU only supports RAM speeds up to 1333 MHz, so my question is will the RAM controller or CPU get damaged if the RAM speed is over that. sorry if I was not very clear about something.
 
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swifty_morgan

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if that were the case the majority of the people who come here would be going through cpu's like carter goes through liver pills. reset cmos. set ram to run at 1600. see how things go for you........ over clocking....... I would lower the multiplier on the cpu and keep bumping the fsb to see what I could get before touching the voltages.
 
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Cats869

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Aug 16, 2014
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The Ram Controller/CPU will not be damaged. If anything, the RAM sticks are the ones that would most likely be damaged but pushing it a few MHz above the supported won't really make any difference. Running at higher speeds without adjusting the voltage would just cause the computer to become unstable. Adjusting the voltage to support the higher clock speeds is where the potential damage could come in but if you're adjusting the voltage ever so slightly, you will be ok. Again, the memory controller and cpu won't be affected by your RAM overclocking except for stability in some cases. Hopefully that is the correct answer.

You should be ok as is with the settings you currently have but its probably a good idea if you set it to the default 1333 MHz settings in case. Hope this helps.
 
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Tradesman1

Tradesman1

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Jun 5, 2013
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___________

The Athlon X4s are rated to 1333, the 965 C3 was the first that could reliably run 1600 sticks
 
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pcbuilder8

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Sep 24, 2014
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Thanks man, I think I will keep the settings i currently have, I don't want to mess with the voltage so I'm going to leave them on auto. I also ran prime95 for about half an hour and i did not get any errors.
 
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