Question Is it bad to have memory with speeds that exceed the memory speeds recommended by your motherboard?

[Fusion1005]

I'm building a gaming PC, and I want to get 3600 speed RAM. However, most motherboards I can find only support memory speeds of up to 3466. If I was to use 3600 memory on mobo's that don't support it, would be bad for my PC?

 

[bioax]

It wouldn't be bad for your pc, but more of a waste of money. That is because it will just run at the highest speed your motherboard can support, in your case 3466 mhz.

 

[Fusion1005]

It wouldn't be bad for your pc, but more of a waste of money. That is because it will just run at the highest speed your motherboard can support, in your case 3466 mhz.

Ok that's what I thought thx. Do you think 3200 mhz on a ryzen 5 3600 is good enough, or would 3600 speeds help me out a good amount?

 

[bioax]

Ok that's what I thought thx. Do you think 3200 mhz on a ryzen 5 3600 is good enough, or would 3600 speeds help me out a good amount?

I would go with the highest your motherboard can support. Anything over 3000 mhz should be fine.

 

[my_pc_build]

Ok that's what I thought thx. Do you think 3200 mhz on a ryzen 5 3600 is good enough, or would 3600 speeds help me out a good amount?

3600 is the recommended sweet spot for Ryzen 3000 processors. I would go for a motherboard that supported that speed (there are lots) and choose memory of that speed.

 

[Fusion1005]

3600 is the recommended sweet spot for Ryzen 3000 processors. I would go for a motherboard that supported that speed (there are lots) and choose memory of that speed.

That's what I figured, as I've heard Ryzen likes fast memory. I'm gonna use the B450 Tomahawk Max which supports 4133 mhz ram. Don't need that much, but it's a really solid board for the price.

 

[mdd1963]

many motherboards claim to support up through 4200, 4600 MHz RAM, etc...

Ryzen 3000 CPUs do support up through 3600 MHz 'optimally'...but run fine on 3200 MHz RAM; certainly it does not hurt running faster RAM at lower speeds, and the converse is sometimes possible, but, not all RAM will overclock and/or be stable at fast/tight timings.