Mobo max ram says 1600(OC) but I just have regular 1600mhz?

[scorpian61]

Hi, I was currently looking at cheap AM3 socket DDR3 motherboards and I came across http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130228 . It says that the maximum speed of DDR3 memory compatible with this mobo is 1600mhz overclocked. I was wondering if I would be fine with just getting ram that is already at 1600mhz stock like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231268 for example. I'm not sure if this is valuable information but I also planned on purchasing http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103680 with this particular setup.

 

[apache_lives]

1600(OC) means 1600 ram support - should be fine

on the other hand, 1600mhz ram is useless and overpriced unless your overclocking i hope your aware.

 

[scorpian61]

When you say, "unless your overclocking", do you mean I have to overclock the 1600mhz ram to 1600mhz or something?

 

[roonj]

It implies that the highest fixed setting in bios for ram is 1333mhz. For people who like to overclock, the motherboard has no limits to memory for overclocking to 1600.
The clock raise from 1333 upto 1600 is done by raising the FSB which also raises the clock of other items. Good news is the cpu clock threshold is 1333, should be goog ram for the board.

 

[scorpian61]

Ah ok, Thank you very much. =)

 

[jitpublisher]

When you say, "unless your overclocking", do you mean I have to overclock the 1600mhz ram to 1600mhz or something?

Basically, yes. Your motherboard will not set the ram to 1600mhz by default. It is most likely 1066, or maybe even 1333, depending on the processor you are going to run. If you want the memory to run at 1600, you will have to "overclock" it to that speed.

Now, what the other guy is saying is the reason most people buy 1600mhz memory is because they plan on overclocking the processor.
When you overclock by way of the FSB, you also at the same time start raising the memory speed. So if your stock memory speed is 1333, and you start raising your FSB to overclock the processor, and you have 1600 ram, you should not have to worry about pushing your RAM farther than it is rated, and thus encountering system instability due to the RAM being clocked past what it is rated to run.

But, if you are not planning on trying big processor overclocks, just buying 1600mhz ram for sake of buying 1600mhz ram and wanting to simply run the ram that fast is a waste of money. There is no speed advantage in doing this. In fact, what you should do is try to match your RAM to your systems running bus speed, and then look for RAM with the tightest or the fastest timings. For instance 1333mhz RAM with timings of 6 is going to have better performance than 1600mhz ram with timings of 8. Notice RAM that runs at faster bus speeds needs also longer latencies. So, there is a balancing factor you have to consider. If you are overclocking, most good memory will run over it's rated speed slightly for mild overclocks, but not for more aggressive overclocking.

You can buy the higher bus speed RAM than your systems default settings, and run at higher bus speeds, but if that higher bus speed is arrived at by using longer latencies, what is the point??????(unless, like I said, you going to be doing some pretty decent overclocking)

 

[scorpian61]

Ok that makes sense. I actually found a more compatible motherboard for about 8 more dollars and I was going to overclock the Phenom II x2 550 Black Edition 3.1ghz cpu to about 3.9 ghz, so 1600mhz RAM would be the way to go right?

 

[jitpublisher]

Yep.