Ram speed showing as 1066 but Installed Ram is 1600

anotherquestion

Hi folks,
Excuse my ignorance around this matter, I have an older Asus M4A785TD-Evo motherboard manual at 
M4A785TD-V EVO - Support (asus.com) and I have had 8gb of extra Ram installed 1600 speed, total now is 12gb .
When I go into Task Manager performance tab it says Ram has a speed of 1066, just wondering why it is not 1600?
Computer has a AMD phernom 945 cpu.
Otherwise computer is running fine, does it really matter about the extra speed?
I just had a look through my previous thread about buying Ram and User Tallmansix wrote,
"Motherboard will support up to 1866 speed according to Asus website, the limit is the AMD phenom II x4 945 which I've just realised is max 1333Mhz but will work perfectly with faster ram as do all CPU's which just clock at the appropriate speed so 1600Mhz is still suitable to fit this setup."
So I take it its only a few hundred in speed I am missing would I be right in thinking that won't really make much of a difference anyways?

getmore4less

What speed are all the sticks?

anotherquestion

Thanks they are all 1600, just added to my previous post if you care to take a look, thanks.

Neil_Jones

Not really.  Bear in mind faster memory will run at the speed of the slowest module.  So if you have 1066 memory in there the 1600 will throttle to match it.  In reality you're not going to notice, its more the quantity of the memory that's important, not how much bandwidth it has (which only has an effect if you're doing something that uses it - browsing the internet doesn't count)

OnlyTheBestWillDo

You were very clearly informed about this in your original thread. perhaps you should take note of the replies; rather than just skipping over them.

2. The new RAM will only run at the slower speed of the old RAM - so existing is 1066 and new is 1333 but will only run at 1066 speed. The motherboard will support 1600 speed RAM so you aren't getting the best out of the chips.

John_Gray

You can get very detailed information about each memory 'stick' by using HWiNFO.

OnlyTheBestWillDo

John_Gray said:

You can get very detailed information about each memory 'stick' by using HWiNFO.

They don't need any detailed information. They were informed in advance that it would happen; with a clear explanation of why. 
The CPU memory controller  is rated at 667 MHz. So that means a clock speed of 1333 MHz. They were recommended to buy 1333 MHz RAM at a lower price and to perhaps upgrade the CPU instead or maybe even a cheap second user graphics card.

anotherquestion

Thanks for replies, I did get the extra 8gb of Ram used for £14 from Cex, with a 24 month warranty, so happy enough with that. I did have a think about getting the 6 core cpu as well that was mentioned in that thread, but on reading reviews one person said that its not really a very noticeable upgrade over the four core I have got.
I do know a little about computers but have to say that some of the techy stuff such as Ram speed and things like CPU memory controller is a bit over my head and probably will take a while to sink in.
Main thing is at the moment the computer is running fine, the 12 GB of Ram is showing up and makes a big difference to the amount that is showing used in the task manager.
Thanks to everyone once again for the good advice.

Neil_Jones

If you don't use all the power of the quad core now its pointless having a six core unless you have applications that will use it.  Its a bit like buying a Ferrari and only using it to go shopping.

OnlyTheBestWillDo

anotherquestion said:

Thanks for replies, I did get the extra 8gb of Ram used for £14 from Cex, with a 24 month warranty, so happy enough with that. I did have a think about getting the 6 core cpu as well that was mentioned in that thread, but on reading reviews one person said that its not really a very noticeable upgrade over the four core I have got.
I do know a little about computers but have to say that some of the techy stuff such as Ram speed and things like CPU memory controller is a bit over my head and probably will take a while to sink in.
Main thing is at the moment the computer is running fine, the 12 GB of Ram is showing up and makes a big difference to the amount that is showing used in the task manager.
Thanks to everyone once again for the good advice.

The main thing is that you are happy with the performance. £14 is a reasonable price to pay for a decent upgrade. Clock speed is not important in your case. It's not as if you are overclocking or anything like that; so no need for any concern in that respect.