DDR3 RAM on AMD board

gorfias

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An AMD board has max of 1333 for DDR3 RAM chips. If I put a 1600 in there, will it just not work to that speed or will it throw errors and/or fail? Your advice is appreciated.
 

SupahEwok

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I think it just can't get the speed up to its potential 1600, it should still run. I don't know why you'd waste the money on RAM with a better speed than necessary, though.
 

Dirty Hipsters

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It just won't work at the max speed. If you have faster ram you can always underclock it in the bios, and that's what's going to happen automatically in your case.
 
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gorfias

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It just won't work at the max speed. If you have faster ram you can always underclock it in the bios, and that's what's going to happen automatically in your case.
That would be a great thing. Gave my nephew 16 Gig: 4x4 to upgrade an ancient 4 Gig system. If the 1600 works, just not at max speed, my hope is he gets 16 Gig rather than 4, but at 1333 which is fine. Gave him an RX 550 2 GB DDR 5 for graphics. I think he'll be able to play GTA 5 at low levels, 30 FPS for the most part (Atholon 465 CPU) and be playable. We'll see. (Gave him a HD 7970 3 Gig DDR 5 too: told him that was last resort as it is power hungry and would likely not help his system... but options are good).
I think it just can't get the speed up to its potential 1600, it should still run. I don't know why you'd waste the money on RAM with a better speed than necessary, though.
Parts hanging around and hope they can help my nephew that has 4 Gig at 1333. At a minimum, I think he can keep the old 4 Gig in 2 slots, put the 1333 in the other 2 slots and have 12 rather than 4 Gig with which to play GTA 5. If he has to toss the 1600... so be it.

Course, my rig is about 3 years old. I'm less than a year I think from making my next build! I think DDR 6 is a thing now? So much changing in only a couple of years.

EDIT: Gave him an RX 550 w/ 2 Gig DDR5 with low power requirements to replace his, I think, 5670 1 Gig DDR 3 card. The new card could help.
 
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Dirty Hipsters

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That would be a great thing. Gave my nephew 16 Gig: 4x4 to upgrade an ancient 4 Gig system. If the 1600 works, just not at max speed, my hope is he gets 16 Gig rather than 4, but at 1333 which is fine. Gave him an RX 550 2 GB DDR 5 for graphics. I think he'll be able to play GTA 5 at low levels, 30 FPS for the most part (Atholon 465 CPU) and be playable. We'll see. (Gave him a HD 7970 3 Gig DDR 5 too: told him that was last resort as it is power hungry and would likely not help his system... but options are good).

Parts hanging around and hope they can help my nephew that has 4 Gig at 1333. At a minimum, I think he can keep the old 4 Gig in 2 slots, put the 1333 in the other 2 slots and have 12 rather than 4 Gig with which to play GTA 5. If he has to toss the 1600... so be it.

Course, my rig is about 3 years old. I'm less than a year I think from making my next build! I think DDR 6 is a thing now? So much changing in only a couple of years.

EDIT: Gave him an RX 550 w/ 2 Gig DDR5 with low power requirements to replace his, I think, 5670 1 Gig DDR 3 card. The new card could help.
I'm not sure I would recommend mixing different ram from different manufacturers at different speeds, even if the 1600 ram gets underclocked. It could cause stability issues as ram from different manufacturers could use modules with wildly different tolerances. You might even have issues running it in dual channel altogether.

If you do want to mix the 1333 ram you already have with the 1600 that you want to add make sure the 1333 is in the first slot.

Honestly though, if you're going to upgrade the ram you might as well just toss the 4gig at 1333 that's already installed and replace it all with the 16gig 1600. You'll likely have better system stability that way.

Also no, DDR6 ram isn't a thing yet. Actually DDR5 was supposed to be released earlier this year and still hasn't been. It's probably been pushed back to 2021 because of manufacturing delays due to covid-19.
 
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Chimpzy

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That would be a great thing. Gave my nephew 16 Gig: 4x4 to upgrade an ancient 4 Gig system. If the 1600 works, just not at max speed, my hope is he gets 16 Gig rather than 4, but at 1333 which is fine. Gave him an RX 550 2 GB DDR 5 for graphics. I think he'll be able to play GTA 5 at low levels, 30 FPS for the most part (Atholon 465 CPU) and be playable. We'll see. (Gave him a HD 7970 3 Gig DDR 5 too: told him that was last resort as it is power hungry and would likely not help his system... but options are good).

Parts hanging around and hope they can help my nephew that has 4 Gig at 1333. At a minimum, I think he can keep the old 4 Gig in 2 slots, put the 1333 in the other 2 slots and have 12 rather than 4 Gig with which to play GTA 5. If he has to toss the 1600... so be it.
I agree with Dirty Hipsters that it's not advisable to mix different ram. Going all 1600mhz is IMO the sound option.

Also, when you say ancient, I hope not so ancient that it's still running Windows XP or such. Because that OS doesn't support physical ram over 4gb, making the upgrade pointless. Probably not, since iirc the CPU you mentioned is from around 2010-ish.
 
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gorfias

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I agree with Dirty Hipsters that it's not advisable to mix different ram. Going all 1600mhz is IMO the sound option.

Also, when you say ancient, I hope not so ancient that it's still running Windows XP or such. Because that OS doesn't support physical ram over 4gb, making the upgrade pointless. Probably not, since iirc the CPU you mentioned is from around 2010-ish.
I'll let him know. If the system has 4 slots, keep the 2x2 and add two 1333s. That would give him 12 Gig of 1333.
The OS is Windows 10: upgraded from Windows 7. You nailed it with the CPU! I built the thing around 2010.
He's asked me if he should upgrade the RAM, CPU and motherboard (and I'd advise the power supply as this one is 10 years old!) At that point, what is he saving? $30 for the case? $15 for the DVD drive. $20 for the multi card reader. Not worth doing IMHO. But if what I gave him does the trick he should get about 3 more years out of it.
 

william32

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It will work fine but you don't get a speed more than 1333.