Underclocking the RAM for Intel P43 board from 1600MHz to 1333MHz.

Faisal McMissile · 28 Mar 2018 at 19:02

Good day,

Last week I bought a used Gigabyte GA-EP43T-S3L board from ebay, as shown in the link below:
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard...-S3L-rev-14#ov

I have no intention to overclock the CPU, memory, and FSB of this P43 board. The board supports DDR3 up until 1333MHz without overclocking. However, the price of the DDR3 1333MHz and DDR3 1600MHz are just the same at my area.

If it is possible to install the 1600MHz on the board, then set the board to underclock it to 1333MHz easily? The reason why I would like to do this is because I think the DDR3 1333MHz will have better resell value than DDR3 1333MHz.

If it is difficult for a newbie like me to underclock the memory from 1600MHz to DDR3 1333MHz however, I will just purchase the DDR3 1333MHz.

Thank you.

bremen1874 · 28 Mar 2018 at 19:15

You can always run memory slower than its rated speed.

Faisal McMissile · 28 Mar 2018 at 19:25

Thank you. May I know how to do it? Is it through the setting in BIOS?

bremen1874 · 28 Mar 2018 at 19:27

99% sure that you won't need to do anything. If you do it will be a bios setting.

Faisal McMissile · 28 Mar 2018 at 19:33

All right, understood. I will explore it by the time I receive the P43 motherboard by mail.

Thank you very much.

Faisal McMissile · 28 Mar 2018 at 20:00

I just realised that the memory for the Gigabyte P43 board that I purchased can go up until 1600MHz without overclocking. All this time I mistakenly thought that all P43 boards from other brands are the same with ASUS P43 boards, because ASUS says that only 2 out of 4 slots of their P43 boards are usable if the memory is oveclocked to 1600MHz. The example of the ASUS boards are shown in the links below:
1) P5P43TD PRO
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5P43TD_PRO/overview/
2) P5P43TD
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5P43TD/overview/
3) P5P43T
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5P43T/overview/

Faisal McMissile · 4 Apr 2018 at 18:48

Good day.

I already received the board in good condition last week.

While trying to shop for a DDR3 memory in a shop nearby my house however, the shopkeeper told me that there are 2 types of DDR3 ram - the old type high density memory and the new type low density memory.

The shopkeeper told me that some older motherboards are not compatible with the new type low density memory. To make the situation worse, the brand new DDR3 available in the market nowadays are the new type low density memory.

I went to the shop without bring the motherboard. The shopkeeper told me to come again with the motherboard so that I can test it with the new type low density memory before deciding to purchase it.

The shopkeeper said some old motherboards can detect the new type low density memory after the BIOS are updated, but some old motherboards still don't detect the new type low density memory even after the BIOS are updated.

Co-incidentally, there are few desktops at my office with the old type high density DDR3. I borrowed the memory temporarily to install windows 10 on system with the P43 motherboard. So far the system is ok.

I even take this opportunity to update the BIOS to the latest version. One of the version even have remark saying 'improving memory compatibility', but I'm not sure whether the update has anything got to do with the new type low density DDR3.

I will go to the shop again with the motherboard this weekend. Hopefully the motherboard can accept the new type low density DDR3. Otherwise I might have to forget about this building P43-based system project.

Faisal McMissile · 9 Apr 2018 at 06:54

Bad news. I went to the shop yesterday with my p43 motherboard to test its compatibility with the Kingston DDR3 low density ram /single sided ram. Unfortunately, the motherboard was not working and produces fast beeping sound. Since receiving the motherboard, I did set-up the system the motherboard using a borrowed Hynix DDR3 high density ram / double sided ram - I took the Hynix ram off from an old seldomly used HP desktop in my office.

Now it is already confirmed that the p43 motherboard is working, but not compatible with new generation of DDR3. Even though I've already updated the BIOS to the latest version (with some version says that it improve memory compatibility), the board still doesn't work with the Kingston DDR3 low density ram /single sided ram sold by the shop. My last resort is to find used DDR3 high density ram / double sided ram on ebay, amazon etc.

The photos of the incompatible Kingston DDR3 low density ram /single sided ram sold by the computer shop and the compatible Hynix DDR3 high density ram / double sided ram borrowed from my office are shown below.

The compatible Hynix DDR3 high density ram / double sided ram borrowed from my office.

The incompatible Kingston DDR3 low density ram /single sided ram sold by the computer shop.

Pocah · 9 Apr 2018 at 20:24

I do remember this issue. Some boards took double, some single, some both. Yes, you are right, the bay or similar is your best bet.

Faisal McMissile · 10 Apr 2018 at 03:35

Sorry, I accidentally copied and pasted the link of the same photo twice. I've already made the correction in the posting. Sorry for the inconvenience

LeMson · 10 Apr 2018 at 15:48

There will be no issues running ram slower, except it's running slower, you just need to find the type your mobo likes

Armageus · 10 Apr 2018 at 16:05

You have your "low density" and "high density" mixed up.

The Hynix stick is low density (16x256M chips), the Kingston is high density (8x512M chips), as the Kingston uses less ram chips (and so each chip has a "higher density")

Generally it will only be the higher capacity memory modules (e.g. 4GB or 8GB) that are high density. Best option is probably to get 4x 2GB Sticks, as it's unlikely a board of that era will support more than 8GB anyway.

Kingston and Hynix Datasheets:
https://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/KVR16N11S8_4.pdf
https://www.skhynix.com/eolproducts.view.do?pronm=DDR3+SDRAM&srnm=HMT351U6CFR8C&rk=20&rc=module

Faisal McMissile · 11 Apr 2018 at 07:20

Armageus said:
You have your "low density" and "high density" mixed up.

The Hynix stick is low density (16x256M chips), the Kingston is high density (8x512M chips), as the Kingston uses less ram chips (and so each chip has a "higher density")

I think you are right. Other people in other forum also explains to me about the same thing, which is:
1) The new type 4GB DIMM is single sided (i.e. single rank), with 4GB on a single side (rank), which makes it a high density 4GB module.
2) The old type 4GB DIMM is double sided (i.e. dual rank), with 2GB on each side (rank), which makes it a low density 4GB module.

However, you still can find this kind of confusion among sellers. If you type the keyword 'DDR3 low density' on ebay, you will get 3 types of listed products:
1) 'low density DDR3' keyword together with '2Rx8' keyword.
2) 'low density DDR3' keyword together with '1Rx8' keyword.
3) 'low density DDR3' keyword only without '2Rx8' or '1Rx8' keyword.

This means that even some of the salesman on the ebay doesnt know whether the low density DDR3 is either '2Rx8' or '1Rx8'. To be safe, I will only purchase the DDR3 with the keyword '2Rx8' on ebay (and amazon) instead of relying on the keyword ''low density DDR3'

Armageus said:
Generally it will only be the higher capacity memory modules (e.g. 4GB or 8GB) that are high density. Best option is probably to get 4x 2GB Sticks, as it's unlikely a board of that era will support more than 8GB anyway.

Kingston and Hynix Datasheets:
https://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/KVR16N11S8_4.pdf
https://www.skhynix.com/eolproducts.view.do?pronm=DDR3+SDRAM&srnm=HMT351U6CFR8C&rk=20&rc=module

Some of the P43 and P45 boards from various manufacturer do supports DDR3 up until 16GB (4GB per slot). If you want, I can list doen some of the examples of the board for you :-)