Do I need to overclock CPU to achieve the advertised RAM Speeds?

[titanxpstarwars]

So I was wondering. I own the Asus Rog Strix Z270e Gaming, an i7 7700k 4.2Ghz and 32GB of Corsair RAM Vengeance at 3600mhz. I do not overclock.

Based on some research I have done, I noticed that my CPU (and almost all CPUs at this time) support speeds up to 2666mhz. I understand that in order to achieve the higher advertised speed of my RAM memory (3600mhz) I need to enable the XMP profile from BIOS.

The question is: Do I need to overclock the CPU in order to do so? And if not, do I need to overclock CPU anyway in order to get a smoothly running PC? What's the deal with this in general?

 

[gigantusmagnus]

1. no, you don't have to overclock CPU to OC RAM
2. i believe you already have a smoothly running PC in stock performance

 

[titanxpstarwars]

1. no, you don't have to overclock CPU to OC RAM
2. i believe you already have a smoothly running PC in stock performance

So technically enabling XMP profile means I am overclocking RAM?

 

[gigantusmagnus]

basically, yes
tho XMP just help you to ran the RAM at advertised speeds, help in configure voltage and timings (its not really an overclock)

 

[titanxpstarwars]

basically, yes
tho XMP just help you to ran the RAM at advertised speeds, help in configure voltage and timings (its not really an overclock)

Thanks!

 

[Vic 40]

Gigantusmagnus could well be right,but in the case of the ram being unstable at that 3600mhz speed do you need to look into overclocking the cpu since the memory controller will be too then.

 

[titanxpstarwars]

Gigantusmagnus could well be right,but in the case of the ram being unstable at that 3600mhz speed do you need to look into overclocking the cpu since the memory controller will be too then.

Why would the ram be unstable at 3600?

 

[Vic 40]

If the memory controller on the cpu has troubles with that speed will it be unstable,only enabling XMP and testing will show.