G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600, In BIOS it says 1600MHz but in Task Manager/CPUz it says 800MHz

[Spenstar]

I was wondering if the clock speed for my memory was supposed to be 800MHz or if there is something wrong with my configuration? Maybe I just need some education in RAM, but I thought that 1600MHz RAM would show up at that speed, and not half of it.

Here is my desktops specs:
> GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
> AMD FX-8320 Vishera 3.5GHz
> G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
> MSI R9 270X GAMING 2G

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[lp231]

That's correct because DDR3 is double data rate so it's 800MHz
800 X 2=1600

 

[smorizio]

newer ram reads funny in some motherboards and hardware diags.
most of the newer daigs like cpu-z will read right for noivice users.
1066 ram will read 667 in some mb. 1600 will be 800. 1866 will be 900.2100 ram will be 1050-1100. it a programing bug that some vendors forget to fix.

 

[Spenstar]

Ok, so when its telling me that it running at 800MHz, its actually running at 1600MHz?

I was a little confused, because my laptop says 1600MHz in task manager and CPUz, so I didn't know if there was something wrong with my desktops configuration.

 

[lp231]

Yes it's running at 1600MHz because DDR has to be multiply by 2, it's 800MHz up and 800MHz down, therefore the total is 1600MHz
My DDR2 runs at 800MHz and CPU-Z detects at 400MHz

 

[Deleted member 217926]

newer ram reads funny in some motherboards and hardware diags.
most of the newer daigs like cpu-z will read right for noivice users.
1066 ram will read 667 in some mb. 1600 will be 800. 1866 will be 900.2100 ram will be 1050-1100. it a programing bug that some vendors forget to fix.

It's not a bug CPU-Z is reading the actual speed in megahertz. Since it's DDR as stated above you get double data rate. So it sends information on both the rising and falling edges of the clock cycle. Venders list RAM speed at it's effective speed and DDR3 1600 is actually 1600MT/s or megatransfers a second. The frequency is 800Mhz.

In other words OP CPU-Z is reading your RAM correctly at 800Mhz. You just double it for effective speed.

 

[Spenstar]

Alright. Here is what mine looks like. But with the answers given, I can have peace in mind that I don't have to purchase new memory.

Thanks!

http://i39.tinypic.com/6h3xpi.png

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Alright. Here is what mine looks like. But with the answers given, I can have peace in mind that I don't have to purchase new memory.

Thanks!

http://i39.tinypic.com/6h3xpi.png

You are all good!

Glad to help.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Oh and just as a future reference if DDR3 is not working at it's rated speed it will be because many boards default all DDR3 to DDR3 1333 ( 667Mhz in CPU-Z ) speeds. In that case you would have to enable XMP if available or manually set the memory to the correct speed in BIOS.

 

[lp231]

Not to be trolling, but there seems to be something odd with OP's ram speed. We know that DDR3 at 1600MHz is actually 800MHz x 2.
When we look at CPU-Z it shows the actual speed and in Windows Task Manager it shows the effective speed. For OP's both CPU-Z and TaskManager are showing the same numbers.

Here are my 2 systems, CPU-Z show the actual, Task Manager show the effective
Main 800MHz effective / 400Mhz actual

Secondary 1600MHz effective /799.6 (800MHz) actual