Mobo compatibility question

Boozebeard · 6 Apr 2010 at 18:33

I currently have this mother board. I want to replace my DDR2 with some DDR3 so I can hopefully overclock my cpu better.

The board says it will support dual channel 1333. I was wondering what would happen if I bought some faster ram, say 1600? Would it not work at all or would it be underclocked to 1333 speed?

I am just wondering because it probably wont be all that long before I buy a new board that would support higher speeds and it would be nice if my ram could take advantage of that.

Higadeb · 6 Apr 2010 at 18:40

I would have though it would just run at the lower speeds given that to get the RAM to 1600 you'd need an XMP or would have to overclock.
Just because RAM is 1600MHz capable doesn't mean it does that speed out the box!

Boozebeard · 6 Apr 2010 at 18:42

Thats what I suspected but wanted to make sure. I'll probably pick up some 1600 then.

NAM_killer · 6 Apr 2010 at 19:12

I would pick up 1333 since it would be cheaper and the board will not actually be able to run 1600mhz ram, there would be no point at all in buying 1600mhz unless you plan to upgrade to a better socket 775 board later on for some reason.

Boozebeard · 6 Apr 2010 at 21:17

How exactly does this work when it comes to overclocking? If I'm over clocking my cpu via the fsb what happens when the ram goes over 1333 mhz? If my board only supports upto 1333?

Higadeb · 6 Apr 2010 at 21:32

It wont go above 1333. The BIOS will/should alter the multiplier to keep the RAM below the limits of the motherboard. My guess would be that if you tried a setting that on a board which allowed 1600MHz would require 1600MHz on your board. The multiplier will be halved leaving the RAM to run at 800MHz.

Boozebeard · 6 Apr 2010 at 22:12

Ok thanks for clearing that up. I'll probably go for the 1600 anyway because they are practically the same price.