MB supported memory speed

[radwan3]

Hello;

I am planning to purchase 2400MHz 16GB memory replacing my current 8 GB 1600Mhz. I have Asus H97-Pro which says it supports 1600MHz, however I opened BIOS setting I was surprised to find option for controlling RAM speed and speeds supported up to 3xxx MHz.

Now my understanding is H series motherboards are not overclockable and this is why I choose i7 4790 (not K) with 1600 MHz RAM.

I am looking to pump my gaming experience with 2400 MHz 16 GB RAM, However Im not sure if my motherboard or CPU are going to limit the speed or something. specially with the fact that i7 4790 is not overclockable on H series motherboard.

Full Spec are mentioned below:
i7 4790 (not K)
Asus H97 Pro
Sapphire R9 280X
Corsair Vengeance 8 GB 1600 MHz
Seagate 1TB HDD
windows 7 64-bit

thank you in advance.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

You can't run memory faster than DDR3 1600 on an H97 motherboard. Well you in fact can run faster memory but the chipset will limit the speed to DDR3 1600. Read the red text after the supported speeds on the QVL.

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1150/H97M-PLUS/H97-PLUS_Memory_QVL_report_0306.pdf

 

[radwan3]

You can't run memory faster than DDR3 1600 on an H97 motherboard. Well you in fact can run faster memory but the chipset will limit the speed to DDR3 1600. Read the red text after the supported speeds on the QVL.

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1150/H97M-PLUS/H97-PLUS_Memory_QVL_report_0306.pdf

Hi Anort;
this is disappointing ... how much performance gain would I have if it was supporting higher speeds?Also, it says limitation due to XMP, what is that in simple English.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

XMP is Extreme memory profile.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_presence_detect

As to performance, in apps that are memory intensive like rendering and decoding as well as multitasking you could see gains of up to 30% by going with DDR3 2400 over DDR3 1600 but in gaming and general everyday use like browsing the gains are much smaller. Effectively zero in gaming. You will need a Z97 motherboard to use faster RAM though so it's up to you if it's worth the cost of a new board and new RAM for limited gains in specific areas.