New builder - RAM question

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I'm finalizing my build and I have a question about the difference in mhz speed, and if my board is capable of taking full advantage of it. I've decided on the G.Skill - Trident Z RGB 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4. It comes in speeds of 3200 and 3600. Is there a noticeable difference between the two? On PC Part Picker, what does the CAS number mean?

My mobo will be one of the ASUS Maximus boards (Formula, Hero, Code). Under technical details it says DDR4 2133 mhz. Does this mean the board will not take advantage of a higher mhz? or is this a minimum mhz the board will use?

CPU: 7700K

I apologize for these potentially dumb questions. I'm still learning.
 
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Lutfij

Lutfij

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Go for the DDR4-3200MHz kit. Out of the box, sans any X.M.P enabling the ram will run at DDR4-2400MHz if you use a Z270 chipsetted board but if it's a Z170 chipsetted board,
1| You're going to need to perform a BIOS update before you can drop in the Kabylake processor part
2| The ram out of the box, sans any X.M.P, would be at DDR4-2133MHz.

If you want to take advantage of the higher ram speeds, you're going to need to enable X.M.P within BIOS. Might I ask what board you've settled upon? On the note about CAS latency's, go for the ram kit that best suites your wallet instead of going for higher latency numbers.
 
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Hellfire13

Hellfire13

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2133 is the minimum requirement for the board and should let you use anything upto 4133mhz. You can easily run them by enabling XMP in your BIOS.
CAS is the number of clock cycles that pass from when an instruction is given for a particular column and the moment the data is available. In general the lower the CAS latency the better.
Use 3200mhz as anything above that has diminishing value of return. Use the Maximus Code as it ahs all the features possible minus the bling factors of Formula.

Edit: The next gen. 8700k is launching pretty soon and you might want to wait for it for better overall performance. Note that it has a different chipset and will not work with z270 boards.
 
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piechart

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Good info. Thanks, guys! I'm leaning towards the Maximus Code for reasons Hellfire13 mentioned. It still has RGB which is a plus :) My build thread is in the Systems forum, but I wanted to tackle this RAM question since I don't have a clue on this subject. It's a bit clearer now. Updating the BIOS, X.M.P?? Sigh... Ok, I'll deal with that when it's time to deal with that, lol. Thanks!

CPU
Intel - Core i7-7700K 4.2GHz Quad-Core Processor

CPU Cooler
NZXT - Kraken X62 Rev 2 98.2 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler

Motherboard
Asus - MAXIMUS IX CODE ATX LGA1151 Motherboard

Memory
G.Skill - Trident Z RGB 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory

Storage
Samsung - 960 PRO 512GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive
Western Digital - BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive

Video Card
??

Case
Corsair - 750D Airflow Edition ATX Full Tower Case

Power Supply
Corsair - RMx 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply


 
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Hellfire13

Hellfire13

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Apr 20, 2016
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Here is a brief comparison of the boards... https://us.hardware.info/comparisontable/products/379613-373875-375172
Code has all the features of Formula which is the most expensive. The board comes with lots of connectivity options, overclocking potential and features like superior audio codec with headphone amps, bluetooth and wifi.

On a separate note, with that kinda hardware you should think of the gtx1080ti for best performance.
 
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