Question On RAM

[Sniper Charlie]

Hello all, the RAM I have now is a speed of 2.133GHz, and only 8GB worth. I wanted to upgrade to 16GB due to a lot of games pushing some limits.
Can anyone please confirm or explain something I read. If I were to get a higher speed, its only good to do that if I Overclock, which I dont know how to do or plan to do. It says its better to stick with the same speed I currently use, due to not seeing a benefit because of no OC.
Is this right or will I see a benefit going higher? Here is my full specs. Thanks for any and all help on this.

Alienware Area 51 R2 (Late 2014)
Windows 10 64 Home
Intel i7 5820K 3.3GHz
8GB RAM - 2 sticks of 4GB per 2.133GHz (standard that came with the Alienware)
AMD Radeon R9 Fury X

[Sapph]

if you can find another 2x4gb kit of 2133MHz ram, you can go for it no problem.

If you get faster ram, it will get slowed down to the speed of the slowest ram, that being your old 2133Mhz.
Thus making it all useless purchase.

And because of your system being an old Intel X99 platform, you wouldn't even see any performance difference from having faster RAM.

[Sniper Charlie]

I was looking at replacing all together. Get rid of the 8GB and buy 2 sticks of 8GB for the 16.

[Omega]

Your RAM will run at the speeds of the slowest clocked module.

The impact of RAM speed in games is usually minimal, but this really depends on the platform and game in question.

However, RAM speed shouldn't be an issue for you, the X99 platform supports quad channel memory. So get two more RAM modules identical to what you currently have and put them in the correct memory slots then your machine will completely dominate in terms of RAM bandwith.

[Sapph]

Sniper Charlie eredeti hozzászólása:

I was looking at replacing all together. Get rid of the 8GB and buy 2 sticks of 8GB for the 16.

Well, in that case you can really get any speed you want and can afford. All you need to do to get that speed, is to go into BIOS and enable XMP.

It's a simple ON-OFF option.

[Sniper Charlie]

Sapph eredeti hozzászólása:

Sniper Charlie eredeti hozzászólása:

I was looking at replacing all together. Get rid of the 8GB and buy 2 sticks of 8GB for the 16.

Well, in that case you can really get any speed you want and can afford. All you need to do to get that speed, is to go into BIOS and enable XMP.

So going against what I read, youre saying I would benefit from getting faster RAM? I dont plan on getting crazy speed. I just found some decent priced RAM, 16GB at 2.666GHz speeds. It says its XMP enabled too.

[Sapph]

Sniper Charlie eredeti hozzászólása:

So going against what I read, youre saying I would benefit from getting faster RAM? I dont plan on getting crazy speed. I just found some decent priced RAM, 16GB at 2.666GHz speeds. It says its XMP enabled too.

You benefit very little of it. But get what is best value.
If you can get 2666Mhz and 3200Mhz at the exact same price, might as well take the 3200Mhz.

[Sniper Charlie]

Well in that case, theres 16GB with 2.133GHz, but its not XMP enabled. I do have the latest BIOS, so it said it needed that updated.

[Sapph]

Sniper Charlie eredeti hozzászólása:

Well in that case, theres 16GB with 2.133GHz, but its not XMP enabled. I do have the latest BIOS, so it said it needed that updated.

THat's because there is no need for XMP with 2133Mhz. 2133Mhz is the base speed of DDR4.
Anything above that is OC speed and will work with XMP enabled or manually setting it. And in-case it's not enabled by default in the BIOS, all you need to do is enter and flip it on and you're done.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Sapph eredeti hozzászólása:

Sniper Charlie eredeti hozzászólása:

So going against what I read, youre saying I would benefit from getting faster RAM? I dont plan on getting crazy speed. I just found some decent priced RAM, 16GB at 2.666GHz speeds. It says its XMP enabled too.

You benefit very little of it. But get what is best value.
If you can get 2666Mhz and 3200Mhz at the exact same price, might as well take the 3200Mhz.

5820K and the other CPUs on that platform were not designed with such RAM in mind. Plus you have the limitations of a Motherboard that you'd expect from an oem pre-build.

The problem either way though is finding more matching RAM as what you have, at 2133

Best bet would be replace all of that RAM with something better. Such as 4x 4GB @ 2400Mhz or higher. Since you are using a Quad-Channel Motherboard, that should be the minimum RAM config to use in them for best results.

[Sniper Charlie]

Yes total replacement. Thank you for the information. I feel better about this wih a bit more confidence in buying the right RAM.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/wxR6WZ
-or-
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/CZ4ngs

[SenMithrarin85]

my ram is supposed to be 2133 or something like that, but goes up to 2400 with xmp. now even though xmp is off, windows reports the speed as 2400...

is that correct?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

SenMithrarin85 eredeti hozzászólása:

my ram is supposed to be 2133 or something like that, but goes up to 2400 with xmp. now even though xmp is off, windows reports the speed as 2400...

is that correct?

Only way you should look at the RAM correctly is with something like CPU-Z
CPU-Z should report the speed as 1200Mhz, since DDR is always X2, if in-fact is @ 2400
1067 = 2133
1200 = 2400
1333 = 2666
1500 = 3000
1600 = 3200

XMP might be off, but if it was once on, the DRAM parameters were probably already changed, as a result of having it switched on in the past. XMP on vs off is not the issue really, it's what changed. XMP is a means of reading the onboard profile and applying those settings to the BIOS entries with ease and with little to no understanding to the user as to what they mean; since messing with the DRAM settings individually can cause all sorts of issues if you don't know what you're changing. So if I had to guess, in your case turning XMP off probably did not revert the changes is all. Just enable XMP and leave it on, to ensure your DRAM Freq + Timings + Voltage get set correctly, based on the currently installed RAM specs.

[Biff]

you should really be looking at your graphics. Onboard or card? What model? 9 series, 10 series? how many Gbs? RAM @ 8gb @ 2133 should be good for most games. Before you upgrade your RAM find out what your motherboard supports. If you don't know how to OC, then don't.