What does the RAM speed mean exactly?

[rae-cs]

I bought some RAM for this build, Kingston Hyper X Fury. When I bought it, it said, 1600mhz.
However, when I looked in the bios, the bios had set it to 1866mhz.

Is that normal? would that have any adverse effect on the system?

 

[androbourne]

Depends on where you read it stated 1600mhz? On the stick it's self or simply on the package order? Did you look online to see if the memory can support higher speeds?

It's very possible an auto adjustment on the mobo took place and it upclocked the memory when you installed it or a static setting is in place. It wouldn't do it automatically unless it was compatible with the higher speeds and that option was enabled.

So long story short. No it wont have any adverse effect on your system because the system normally wouldn't even be able to boot if the memory stick it's self wasn't compatible with 1866mhz speeds.

But to verify. What is the exact model of ram stick you have? Hyper X Fury has a few different versions of ram at different speeds.

If its this. https://www.kingston.com/us/hyperx/memory/fury it's able to handle "Frequency (speed) 1333MHz, 1600MHz, 1866MHz" according to their site.

 

[SkyNetRising]

However, when I looked in the bios, the bios had set it to 1866mhz.

Can you post screenshots from CPU-Z memory and spd sections?