1600 MHz RAM showing as 1333 Mhz

[Keffoo321]

I have a GA-Z77X-D3H motherboard, which supports RAM up to 1600MHz and my RAM is a Corsair kit XMS3 1600MHz. I checked my RAM speed with CPU-Z and it says that the frequency is 665.2MHz. I read somewhere that you need to double that frequency to get your RAM frequency, so it would be around 1333 MHz.

I read other forums about similar issues, but I don't understand what is going on, nor do I know if I SHOULD fix this. I read that I might have to turn XMP on which is overclocking if I'm correct. I just don't understand why it's not showing up as 1600 MHz, because both my motherboard and my ram are 1600MHz, and my processor is a i7-3770K.

How do I fix this, and if I do, could this harm my computer?

Thanks in advance!

 

[wanderer11]

You do have to enable XMP profile in BIOS to get 1600 MHz. 1333 is the default and every RAM set rated for that speed or faster will default to 1333. Go to the overclocking section of your BIOS and poke around for RAM timing and there should be an option for enable XMP. Just save and boot into windows to check it. It will not harm anything.

 

[Keffoo321]

Thanks. It took some time getting into the BIOS because for some reason my keyboard didn't want to work. I had to get a old PS2 keyboard, but it worked! CPU-Z and my BIOS is now reporting that my RAM is running at 1600MHz! Thank you so much!