I've always thought that pretty much the only thing you have to keep in mind when choosing RAM is to make sure its frequency is supported by the motherboard, and that's what I did.
My motherboard and RAM both support 1600 MHz, but according to CPU-Z, the actual frequency is 1333 MHz instead (or ~669 MHz x 2 to be exact). I've been trying to figure out why, and managed to find two possible reasons.
Reason #1: The frequency was set by the manufacturer to a "safe" value, but can be increased at any time to the advertised value. This doesn't really make sense to me. If RAM is supposed to run at 1600 MHz, and the motherboard supports that frequency, why doesn't it do that from the get-go? It seems like there's a risk involved in increasing the frequency to what it's supposed to be, which is strange (we're not talking about overclocking after all).
Reason #2: The reason why the frequency is lower is because that's as much as the CPU can handle. This makes a lot more sense to me. Until recently, I had no idea that CPUs (similarly to motherboards) have a maximum RAM frequency that they can support. The PC I use is old and its CPU supports only 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM. I'm pretty sure it's the bottleneck that limits the frequency, but I'd like to hear it from you guys. Btw. What if I enter BIOS and set the RAM frequency to 1600 MHz? Will it get changed back to 1333 MHz because of the CPU? And what if I overclock the CPU? Will it increase the maximum supported RAM frequency it supports too?
I've got two more random questions about RAM if you don't mind answering them:
1. Can I use two different kits of two memory modules (i.e. 2 identical Kingston modules, and two identical Corsair modules) in dual channel as long as I put modules from the same kit in the same channel? The final setup would look like this: channel 1 = 2x Kingston, channel 2 = 2x Corsair. Same size, frequency, and CL. (Btw. What if let's say the CL is different? Does it completely break dual channel?)
2. Why do games usually need a lot of RAM? As far as I know, textures are the largest files and they go to VRAM (unless there's no more room in it). So what exactly requires gigabytes of RAM as far as games are concerned?
Thank you for your time!
My motherboard and RAM both support 1600 MHz, but according to CPU-Z, the actual frequency is 1333 MHz instead (or ~669 MHz x 2 to be exact). I've been trying to figure out why, and managed to find two possible reasons.
Reason #1: The frequency was set by the manufacturer to a "safe" value, but can be increased at any time to the advertised value. This doesn't really make sense to me. If RAM is supposed to run at 1600 MHz, and the motherboard supports that frequency, why doesn't it do that from the get-go? It seems like there's a risk involved in increasing the frequency to what it's supposed to be, which is strange (we're not talking about overclocking after all).
Reason #2: The reason why the frequency is lower is because that's as much as the CPU can handle. This makes a lot more sense to me. Until recently, I had no idea that CPUs (similarly to motherboards) have a maximum RAM frequency that they can support. The PC I use is old and its CPU supports only 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM. I'm pretty sure it's the bottleneck that limits the frequency, but I'd like to hear it from you guys. Btw. What if I enter BIOS and set the RAM frequency to 1600 MHz? Will it get changed back to 1333 MHz because of the CPU? And what if I overclock the CPU? Will it increase the maximum supported RAM frequency it supports too?
I've got two more random questions about RAM if you don't mind answering them:
1. Can I use two different kits of two memory modules (i.e. 2 identical Kingston modules, and two identical Corsair modules) in dual channel as long as I put modules from the same kit in the same channel? The final setup would look like this: channel 1 = 2x Kingston, channel 2 = 2x Corsair. Same size, frequency, and CL. (Btw. What if let's say the CL is different? Does it completely break dual channel?)
2. Why do games usually need a lot of RAM? As far as I know, textures are the largest files and they go to VRAM (unless there's no more room in it). So what exactly requires gigabytes of RAM as far as games are concerned?
Thank you for your time!