PCI 3.0 and RAM bottleneck?

[Black Thought]

So I have a specific question in regards to some purchases I will be making in the coming weeks. One thing i wanted to settle was that I had heard that i5 series processors weren't capable of utilizing RAM clock speeds above 1333. On the same note I had also read alot of suggestions to buy RAM at 1600mhz with the current sandy bridge i5 series. Am I reading something wrong or whats the deal here?

Secondly are only the new ivybridge cpu's capable of supporting pci 3.0? and if so is there any real advantage to it?


Thanks for your time

 

[Guest]

AFAIK the only limitations with 1600 RAM is you have to set the speed in the bios as it defaults to 1333 and it needs to be 1.5 volts to not void the intel warranty on the cpu.

ivy bridge cpus also have intel HD 3000 which is a lot faster using quick sync besides pci-e 3.0 support. the 5-15% performance increase depends on the applications and it has a lower power requirement @77watts.

 

[jimmysmitty]

AFAIK the only limitations with 1600 RAM is you have to set the speed in the bios as it defaults to 1333 and it needs to be 1.5 volts to not void the intel warranty on the cpu.

ivy bridge cpus also have intel HD 3000 which is a lot faster using quick sync besides pci-e 3.0 support. the 5-15% performance increase depends on the applications and it has a lower power requirement @77watts.

Its HD4000 for the top end models and HD2500 (I think) for the rest.

As for PCie 3.0, currently SB-E CPUs support it and Ivy Bridge will support it with either a Z7X mobo or a Z68 Gen3 mobo.

As for the memory, officially Sandy Bridge based CPUs support up to 1333MHz but, for example, Corsair Vengance 1600MHz DDR3 works at that speed. Ivy Bridge will officially support up to 1600MHz DDR3, of course as said, it needs to be 1.5v as anything over 1.5v will void the warranty of the CPU as thats the top voltage the IMC is supposed to run at.

 

[Black Thought]

Best answer selected by Black Thought.