1866+ DDR3 on a 1600- motherboard. Shine?

[OgiD]

Hi all!

I've seen some discussions about this question around here but I didn't see what I actually wanted to see: CAS Latency, will it change?

So, I'm building a mid gamer PC on an H97 mobo, which supports up to 1600MHz DDR3. At the same time, I see that 2133MHz memories, for example, are about the same price as 1600MHz ones. Thinking of a possible future upgrade, I want to go for the 2133, but I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do.

Will they work perfectly on this underclocked state?
As they are made to run at a faster clock rate, will taking it from it's natural environment make it unstable at any level?
And, very important, if it is said to be a CAS 9 DDR3 2133, will it run at 1600 and still be a CAS 9?

I thank everyone in advance for your opinions!

 

[i7Baby]

There's no guarantees with downclocking as to whether it will work. You can take a chance with 2133. Or you can buy a guaranteed 1600 kit.

 

[SBMfromLA]

The RAM I bought for my computer has a base speed of 1600 MHz but has the ability to be overclocked to 1866, which is what I keep it running at. So it's ok to run RAM at higher speeds at a later date if it supports Overclocking (or XMP).. so you should be OK.

 

[i7Baby]

You can't just downclock one stick while there's two sticks in there.

You can only run one of those sticks.

 

[OgiD]

Thanks a lot! I'm going to go for the 1600 then.