ASUS P7P55D-E LX and 4 sticks of memory over standard

[truepurple]

I was told (by memory tech guys) that if you use both sets of ram slots on a motherboard, you risk having any speed over 1333 or latency under 9 9 9 9 24 to get reduced to spec or other issues. That it varies per the board, not the brand.

Is this true? How concerned do I need to be about getting for example 1600 ram only to have it reduced because I am using all 4 of my slots?

If you reply with a answer, please tell me if your speaking from specific knowledge, or more of a educated guess.

[pcjunkie209]

from xperience you will not loose speed

[truepurple]

What motherboard were you using? And you checked both slots to make sure no speed was lost in either?

[martin_metal_88]

What could happen is some instability if you use very agressive ram. Bumping the voltage on the memory will fix the issue as fast as it come.

[Brian@ASUS]

yea ive been using the p7p55d premium with 8 gigs gskill 2133 ram oced to 4ghz and runs fine.

i dont know what your tech guy is talking about but 1600mhz should be no problem unless the board was specifically designed to run only at 1333. if we put 4 dimms on a board, there would be no reason why you would not be able to use them.

and the risk is more on the CPU's Integrated memory controller. some are better than others, just a luck of the batch. so yea if the IMC is really ****ty, it could cause instability when overclocking with a high memory frequency, but still 1600mhz should be fine.

[truepurple]

Do I need to overclock the CPU to appreciate any benefit from 1600 over 1333? What kind of system performance difference can I expect with 1600 instead of 1333? Worth $25 more for each set?

If I did put 4 1600 dimms on my board and there was speed issues, would asus do a exchange or something?

[martin_metal_88]

the only benefit of 1600 over 1333 if you don't oc woul;d be like .1 sec in supier pi and thing like that...You can run the ram at 1333 without any issue and you wont notice the difference.

[Brian@ASUS]

no we wouldn't switch the board because its most likely memory issues not the board.

[truepurple]

Martin, so your saying if I don't increase the clock speed of the CPU, I won't see any real benefit at all to having ram running at 1600 instead of 1333?

Does over clocking things like the CPU and RAM generally provide more performance for the energy and heat used? Is it possible to do so without significantly decreasing the lifespan of the various components involved?

A tech guy and corsair said that if I am going to to get 16GB, I should buy a 4 set off the bat, that if I buy two identical 2 sets I might need to clock them down a step from their stated speed to get to work, and they might not work together anyway. Is that you guys understanding of things? If so, what are the ballpark odds of clocking down, and of not working together at all? Is there a site that tests these things?