B360 Artic motherboard and Sniper X, F4-3200 ddr4. Are they compatible?

[Sainbo]

I have a MSI B360 Artic motherboard that I bought and am pairing it with a G.Skills Sniper-X, F4-3200 2x8 Gb memory which I have since found out is too fast for the motherboard which is rated at a lower speed. I have already had to rma the mobo and one stick of memory. Can those two work together if I go into the bios and set the speed for the memory?

 

[stickg1]

Yes, just set a lower speed for the memory. You can do 2666MHz and probably tighten up your timings to make up for some of the speed difference.

 

[Sainbo]

Yes, just set a lower speed for the memory. You can do 2666MHz and probably tighten up your timings to make up for some of the speed difference.

Hey, thanks for the quick reply. This is my first build. What do you mean by tightening up the timings, exactly?

 

[stickg1]

I don't know the exact memory kit you're using, but lets say for example your memory is rated for 3200MHz with 16-18-18-38 latencies. Those latency timings are the timings I'm referring to. So if you lower the speed to 2666MHz, at the stock 1.35v the RAM is rated for, you may very well be able to lower those timings to 15-16-16-35. This makes your memory perform faster. And typically the higher the speed (MHz) the higher those latency numbers get. So they are scale-able. But just for the sake of getting the system running, I would set your speed and put the rest on AUTO and make sure eveything is working just fine. Later on you can go in and fine tune the memory and see what works and what doesn't. Setting the latency too low may cause instability or even cause the motherboard not to POST. So I would do some reading on your RAM and the results other's have had with it to get a starting point.