Question What clock speed should I set my RAM to, based on my CPU's limitations?

necroheadbanger

Honorable
Sep 8, 2017
95
3
10,545
Hi people.

I just upgraded to 16x2 gigs of RAM (Kingston Fury Beast DDR4 RGB KF432C16BBA/16). This RAM is clocked at 3200mhz, but my CPU (i3 10105f) only supports up to 2666mhz of RAM speed. My mobo is an ASRock B560M-HDV.

I've tried a few things on the UEFI just to play around:

1. Setting XMP to Auto and clock speed to auto sets speed to 2400mhz, which seems to be the JEDEC standard for this RAM, according to the specs PDF.

2. Setting the clock speed to 2533 and 2666 automatically while the XMP profile is set to Auto.

3. Setting the XMP profile to "Profile 1", which sets the clock speed to 3200, which is more than the CPU can supposedly handle.

So far none of these seem to have caused any trouble but I haven't really put my RAM under any sort of stress so far. What is the recommended clock speed given these conditions? What could go wrong if I clock my RAM above the CPU's limit?
 

punkncat

Polypheme
Ambassador
Probably overthinking the issue with the understanding that you are seeking a technical answer...In regard to performance I don't think you will see much difference regardless of speed. Intel isn't as sensitive to RAM speed to performance, particularly in gaming FPS performance as AMD. In this situation I would consider testing to see if there is a reliability difference over time with those parameters.

Long story short, if XMP isn't causing issue, set it and forget it.