I5 3570k can't use RAM that is faster than 1600 MHz

Your friends are wrong and intel will never be wrong.but why you worrying about ram speeds as they have minimal impact on performance.

it can go beyond 1600, but at that point you are overclocking, hence both are right, intel will only talk about rated speeds, but your friends are referring to OC speeds.

However if you are using a discrete gpu there is little benefit.

It CAN go beyond 1600 but at that point you are running beyond rated speed and it may or may not work. It probably will but that's into the overclocking region.

Doesnt it depend on the motherboard chipset and not the cpu?

1600 is what the cpu, can run the ram at with stock settings, and speed. With an overclock u can set the ram to 2133, which im guessing ur motherboard supports without an oc, and ur ram advertosed setting is.\

Basically everything intel lists for their cpus really relates to when running everything at stock settings

Edit: The cpu has the memory controller and that determines what it can run at stock, but if the motherboard only supports lets say 1333 without an oc, the ram will most likely default the ram to 1333, instead of 1600

I had the same trouble getting my Kingston 2133 memory to run at full speed with the 3570K. I'm running an Asrock Z77 Extreme4+ MB.

In the bios setting (overclocking section), turn the turbo mode on. Set the CPU timing at 100mHz and the multiplier at 34. If you run the CPU on the "auto" setting without the turbo enabled, the CPU will throttle down to 1.6 gHz and cannot run the memory at 2133. The highest I was able to get it going in that mode was 1866.

You can then set the memory in the BIOS to run at 2133, or just use the XMP profile for 2133. WARNING: this CPU will run hot. Best to also add a high end CPU cooler. I put in a Coolermaster Hyper 212 cooler at $30 and it rarely gets above 40 degrees C. Set your CPU fans to run on high at 45 degrees C and the system will stay quiet most of the time.

I had the same trouble getting my Kingston 2133 memory to run at full speed with the 3570K. I'm running an Asrock Z77 Extreme4+ MB.

In the bios setting (overclocking section), turn the turbo mode on. Set the CPU timing at 100mHz and the multiplier at 34. If you run the CPU on the "auto" setting without the turbo enabled, the CPU will throttle down to 1.6 gHz and cannot run the memory at 2133. The highest I was able to get it going in that mode was 1866.

You can then set the memory in the BIOS to run at 2133, or just use the XMP profile for 2133. WARNING: this CPU will run hot. Best to also add a high end CPU cooler. I put in a Coolermaster Hyper 212 cooler at $30 and it rarely gets above 40 degrees C. Set your CPU fans to run on high at 45 degrees C and the system will stay quiet most of the time.

I had the same trouble getting my Kingston 2133 memory to run at full speed with the 3570K. I'm running an Asrock Z77 Extreme4+ MB.

In the bios setting (overclocking section), turn the turbo mode on. Set the CPU timing at 100mHz and the multiplier at 34. If you run the CPU on the "auto" setting without the turbo enabled, the CPU will throttle down to 1.6 gHz and cannot run the memory at 2133. The highest I was able to get it going in that mode was 1866.

You can then set the memory in the BIOS to run at 2133, or just use the XMP profile for 2133. WARNING: this CPU will run hot. Best to also add a high end CPU cooler. I put in a Coolermaster Hyper 212 cooler at $30 and it rarely gets above 40 degrees C. Set your CPU fans to run on high at 45 degrees C and the system will stay quiet most of the time.

I had the same trouble getting my Kingston 2133 memory to run at full speed with the 3570K. I'm running an Asrock Z77 Extreme4+ MB.

In the bios setting (overclocking section), turn the turbo mode on. Set the CPU timing at 100mHz and the multiplier at 34. If you run the CPU on the "auto" setting without the turbo enabled, the CPU will throttle down to 1.6 gHz and cannot run the memory at 2133. The highest I was able to get it going in that mode was 1866.

You can then set the memory in the BIOS to run at 2133, or just use the XMP profile for 2133. WARNING: this CPU will run hot. Best to also add a high end CPU cooler. I put in a Coolermaster Hyper 212 cooler at $30 and it rarely gets above 40 degrees C. Set your CPU fans to run on high at 45 degrees C and the system will stay quiet most of the time.

Intel CPU's do not really need extremely fast RAM since outside of benchmarking, there is really very little performance impact. However, if every 0.1FPS increase (to a maximum of 0.5FPS) is important, then go for it.

The reason why it is no longer important is because Intel does not use FSB anymore; Front Side Bus. FSB is linked to the RAM speed and that in turn is linked to the CPU's frequency. So increasing the FSB also increases the CPU's frequency.

Not anymore. Intel has switched to BCLK (Base Clock) and it basically is set to 100MHz and it uses the CPU's multiplier to determine the frequency. Unlike FSB which basically linked just the RAM and CPU, BCLK links to everything on the motherboard. That means PCI slots, PCI-e slot, USB ports, FireWire Ports, etc. Therefore, if you want to overclock an Intel CPU just by using the frequency, then you need to increase the BCLK above 100MHz.

But there is a catch... The PCI, PCI-e, USB and most likely FireWire ports are sensitive to the BLCK. Setting the BLCK "too high" (like 105MHz) can cause instability, non-functionality, or worse... permanent damage.