I5 2500k and DDR3 1600?

[RamosL22]

Hello,

I'm in the process of building my first computer. I was going through my motherboard's users manual when I noticed it said "To support DDR3 1600 mhz, you must install an intel 22nm (ivy bridge) CPU. Seeing that my i5 is sandy bridge it had me wondering.

My mobo is a GA-Z77-DS3H

Thank you in advance!

 

[xtreme5]

wrong! I5 2500k support upto 2400mhz frequency in websites mention frequencies are just officially supported don't bother you should be fine at all,
i'm also running 2500k with 8gb ddr3 1866mhz and works perfectly..

 

[Pinhedd]

Sandybridge 2xxx CPUs only "officially" support DDR3-1333 on the desktop. Some Sandybridge 2xxxM CPUs support DDR3-1600 and Sandybridge-E 3xxx support DDR3-1600. What this means is that the controller is designed and tested and warrantied to run at these speeds with DDR3 DRAM that meets JEDEC specifications. Please note that a lot of enthusiast DRAM modules have higher voltages and tighter timings than JEDEC specifications, these are NOT guaranteed to work.

Naturally almost all of the existing Sandybridge chips will handle 1600 without breaking a sweat simply by selecting an XMP profile or entering values manually. Most will also handle 1866 as well. I'm running 32GB at 2133 using just an XMP profile. However, despite profiles existing as high as 2400, there have been reports of lower end CPUs such as the i3s and some i5s having problems running at speeds higher than 1866. I have not heard of any 1333 CPUs failing to run at 1600 but if they don't, Intel will not replace them because they are not warrantied to run higher than 1333.

 

[constepatdyak]

i got 2500k....1600mhz will be fine. Don't worry.

 

[sam_fisher]

When I installed mine it worked fine, just enabled XMP and then set it to 1600MHz. I couldn't boot properly though and I had to increase the voltage by 0.05V I think it was, then it worked fine.

 

[xtreme5]

2500k is not a lower value chip, intel site mention that this chip support 1333 but it means this is officially supported you can go further easily whether its 1600 or 2133 etc i'm telling you everyone using higher memory frequencies without any problem so be happy..

 

[Pinhedd]

2500k is not a lower value chip, intel site mention that this chip support 1333 but it means this is officially supported you can go further easily whether its 1600 or 2133 etc i'm telling you everyone using higher memory frequencies without any problem so be happy..

I'm telling you that it's not that simple. I just posted in another thread to a guy who couldn't get his GSkill DDR3-1866 running stable on a brand new 3570k. Most people will be able to get high speed memory running at module speeds but most people is a subset of everyone, not an equivalent set. I talked with a guy yesterday who simply could not get 4 modules to run at 1600 speeds on his Biostar motherboard without pumping the voltage up to 1.7 volts and he was still testing last I checked. There are a lot of factors that play into getting getting high speed memory working which include PSU quality, motherboard quality, CPU quality, firmware support, etc... and of course the memory itself

Intel's internal engineering is such that the vast majority of fabricated chips have a high enough margin that they will operate at the high speeds without significant end user adjustment but as the top chips are binned off for the top market segments that margin gets narrower and narrower which means that the i3s and the low end i5s are the runts.

 

[xtreme5]

may be a problem in a mobo not thats a fault of 3570k... i'm running g.skill ripjaws x series 8gb 1866mhz very stable with 2500k and asus p8z68 vpro.. everything is perfect.

 

[RamosL22]

Best answer selected by RamosL22.

 

[RamosL22]

Thank you all for your input! I appriciate it. I'm pretty excited and can't wait for the rest of the parts to ship in next week! What do you guys think of my specs?

PNY NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 1GB
600 Watt W 24/20-Pin ATX Power Supply
Asus DVD-E818A7T/BLK/B/GEN
GA-Z77-DS3H
i5 2500k
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500 GB SATA III HD model WD5000AAKX
G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600
MSI Raptor ATX case

I'm hoping it'll be a nice little powerful machine.

 

[nikorr]

This topic has been closed by Nikorr