Question Motherboard only supports upto 2133 Mhz DDR4 RAM. Can I install a 3200 MHZ stick to make it dual channel?

[Erunia]

I'm currently using a motherboard that only supports upto DDR4 2133 Mhz memory. I have one 8Gb 2133 stick in single channel installed. I'm experiencing severe stutter issues in multiple games. I was told that using dual channel ram would get rid of the stuttering by a friend who had the same problem. I live in a country where i cant seem to find any other 2133 Mhz ram remaining in stock. Can I just buy a 3200 Mhz stick of the same brand and install it to run it in dual channel? Will it work fine like a kit of 2133 Mhz RAM?



My Specs:

i5 6500
GIGABYTE GA-B150M-D3H (rev. 1.0)
Team Elite+ DDR4 8GB Single Channel Ram
Palit SuperJetstream GTX 1070 8GB GDDR5
1TB HDD
120 GB SSD
FSP Hexa 550+ PSU

 

[Zizo007]

Yes you can downclock it with same timings but its not recommended. I was running 2666 and 2800Mhz RAMs from the same brand without an issue for over a year.

Be sure to be able to return the RAM if it doesn't boot or else just buy a new 3200 kit and downclock it.

 

[Erunia]

Yes you can downclock it with same timings but its not recommended. I was running 2666 and 2800Mhz RAMs from the same brand without an issue for over a year.

Be sure to be able to return the RAM if it doesn't boot or else just buy a new 3200 kit and downclock it.

My motherboard doesn't support overclocking. Does that mean I can't downclock it as well?

 

[Phaaze88]

I'm currently using a motherboard that only supports upto DDR4 2133 Mhz memory. I have one 8Gb 2133 stick in single channel installed. I'm experiencing severe stutter issues in multiple games. I was told that using dual channel ram would get rid of the stuttering by a friend who had the same problem. I live in a country where i cant seem to find any other 2133 Mhz ram remaining in stock. Can I just buy a 3200 Mhz stick of the same brand and install it to run it in dual channel? Will it work fine like a kit of 2133 Mhz RAM?

Ram does not run at the rated speed out of the box. The 3200 kit will run at the default 2133mhz unless you change it yourself in the bios.
But since your current motherboard doesn't support memory overclocking anyway, the new kit will run at 2133 also.

The main issue lies with adding/mixing kits. Sometimes it works, sometimes not - even if the kits have identical specs, they can still fail, they simply have the highest chance to work together.
No one can give you a concrete answer as to whether a combination will work or not.