Recognizing 1600 Mhz RAM

I'm new to this build your own computer thing so be gentle.

I've completely rebuilt my PC - the project started out as small upgrade from 4 to 16 GB of RAM ended up being a major overhaul. The old system was built in Aug 2010 by my son the IT Tech, sadly he lives about 3,000 miles away in Mississippi so popping over to get my system upgrade was not an option. I was on my own. And I did it!

I needed to add more than the 4 GB RAM in the old system to properly run Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 - it was giving me "out of RAM errors". But my old rig had 2 x 2 GB of DDR2 RAM and the mBoard only had two slots. Buying 16 GB of DDR2 RAM was going to be expensive, and hard to find.


I decided on the new AMD A10 APU processor and have it on a ASUS F2 A85-M Pro motherboard. I did get the dual graphics to run with an ASUS HD 6670 video card with 2 GB of VRAM. Once I learn how I'll benchmark it and let you know how it's working for me.

(I did stumble across a discussion of DDR3 vs DDR5 VRAM - and learned that since my mBoard has DDR3 and I was crossfiring (dual graphics is a form of crossfire) then it would only work if the VRAM and the RAM being used by the APU were the same. Glad I stumbled across that tidbit of information and 2GB of DDR3 was cheaper than 1 GB of DDR5 on the same card).

When buying my components I had thought I'd just get 16 GB but the salesman talked me into going for 32 GB of RAM so that I would not face the same problem with buying more ram a couple of years down the road only to find that it is hard to get and expensive like DDR2 is today.

AND I am looking into using my excess unused RAM as a 'photo scratch disk" - RAMdisk for photoshop. As I understand this you import you pics onto the RAM disk - fix them up using the superfast RAM and then save the photoshopped images onto my storage drive (a new 2T Seagate). I also was talked into a 128 GB Kingston HyperX SSD for the OS and Photoshop program.

Did I mention the minor memory upgrade turned into a major overhaul?

At first I did not know why it only showed 16GB available of my installed 32 GB of RAM then I stumbled across the 16 GB max for WIndows 7 Home Premium. So last night I upgraded to Windows 8 Pro - $69 at Staples - I know I could have downloaded it cheaper but I'm on a rural satelite dish internet connection - on the upside it is faster than dial up was

Windows 8 recognizes all 32 GB of RAM. And now I'm a PRO

ANYway - I bought 32 GB of 1600 MhZ Kingston HyperX Red RAM. Fortunately it is not the kind with high fins because it would not have fit under my Cooler Master 212 Cooler *(just in case anyone is wondering although it does not say it fits over an F2 socket - it does).



BUT - my system thinks it is 1333 Mhz RAM and not the 1600 Mhz I bought.

Here is what I bought: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX41401

Still on sale for $75 I see. Hate it when you go back to a website after making a purchase and see the price has dropped a lot.

SO Overclockers annoymous How Do I Get this Mboard/System to give me the 1600 Mhz of RAM I bought? (And is it really worth the effort at the end of the day?


FYI I'm in northern Canada so don't give me grief about prices, we pays what we have to pay up here.

FKD

When in doubt read the instructions.

I did not know that to change the timings you need to select the box with the mouse, then use the + or - key to raise or lower the value.

All is well, the system now is at 1600 Mhz.

I did start to fill in my rig's set up but boy oh boy that's a detailed system you've got there. I'll have to come back to that when have more time. BUT it is good.