Can I underclock 2133 mhz to 1600?

[cjrw59]

I bought G skill Ripjaws ram and the i5 4670k doesnt support 2133mhz. Can i underclock my memory to run at 1600 instead? If so how would i do that? I have the msi z97 g55 motherboard with click bios 4.

 

[nukemaster]

With most boards it is just a matter of changing a multiplier for the memory controller.

Many boards will default to a lower speed like 1333 or 1600 anyway. if you have XMP on, turn it off.

Also while not officially supported, many systems will run these higher memory speeds.

 

[noahhicks]

RAM is pretty smart about running at a compatible speed. Basically, the MB will run the RAM as fast as it can. You shouldn't even have to change any bios settings for it to work. At some point you might want to check the settings, but essentially, if the MB is set to AUTO for RAM speed, the RAM will run at that speed. It's not as fast as your RAM can theoretically go, but it will work.

 

[larkspur]

The 4670k can do 2133mhz ram. It is not 'officially' supported but is instead considered an "overclock" of its memory controller. Use the XMP setting in the bios to configure your ram to its advertised settings. If you'd rather run it at a lower speed then follow what those above have said.

 

[cjrw59]

If i was to change the memory multiplier, what should i change it to?

 

[cjrw59]

So the ram will work with my system? i just need to turn off xmp and leave all the other settings on auto and it should run at 1600mhz?

 

[Tradesman1]

Yes you'll be fine, by default the mobo will run the DRAM at 1333 or 1600, for 2133 simply enable XMP and select profile 1....You'll be perfectly fine at 2133 with your CPU, you could more than likely run even 2666/2800 with your CPU (and possibly higher)

 

[nukemaster]

So the ram will work with my system? i just need to turn off xmp and leave all the other settings on auto and it should run at 1600mhz?

Yes.

Once upon a time many board makers tried to default to the highest speeds, but this caused LOTS of issues since faster memory required high voltage. Without this voltage boost the memory did not work leaving many users with that looked like defective systems.

So everything tends to take the safe 1333 or 1600 route now.

As Tradesman1 says, you can actually use XMP profile 1 to run the memory at the higher speed with a 99% chance it will work fine. Lots of users are running fast memory with your generation of chips.

 

[Tradesman1]

While most relatively current mobos default to 1333, 1600/9 is basically considered entry level DRAM and has been for over a year now even on AMD which still has numerous mobos that default to 1066 (a result of them having weaker MCs (memory controllers)...Intel put out the XMP standard (which starts at 1600) to make it easier for people to set up their their faster DRAM as they realized (going back to DDR2) that people wanted faster sticks....

The biggest thing about DRAM is that few people understand the workings of it or how to set it up (if need be) manually, there's not a lot of people that even want to mess with the base timings (i.e. the 9-9-9-24), and far fewer that will touch secondary timings (let alone tertiary timings). I've had occasion to deal with techs from Corsair, Mushkin and others that have no idea what to do with secondary timings like tRFC, tFAW, etc especially to get mixed sets to work, which can be important, i.e. many people will buy 2 sets of 2 sticks rather than a tested 4 stick set (to save a few dollars), and then don't understand why they won't play nice, they don't realize that the XMP programming is by the packaged set and for example a 2x8GB set might require a tRFC of say 220 the same exact sticks in a 4 stick set might need a tRFC of 255-278 to run smoothly