Help me choosing ram speed

[Emillio]

Hi everyone, I'm currently running a ryzen 5 1600. I am planning to upgrade my ram. The ram that I wanted to buy is 3600MHz speed but on AMD website the capabilities of my cpu is only at 2667MHz. Does that mean it cannot run at 3600MHz although my motherboard support it? Does it mean if I buy 3600MHz ram is a complete waste of money?

 

I forgot to tell everyone that the reason I wanted to upgrade my ram is because I currently have 2x4GB ram. I wanted to upgrade to 2x8GB or 2x16GB but the MHz realy confused me. Also, in my country memory with 2666MHz is already rare because almost no stores sell ram with 2666MHz anymore. If I buy 3200MHz or 3600MHz memory will it work with my cpu or not? Does my cpu is capable of reading 3200MHz or 3600MHz? This might be a very basic question but I really need to know this so that I can buy the correct ram for my pc.

Edited December 16, 2022 by Emillio

[RONOTHAN##]

7 minutes ago, Emillio said:

The ram that I wanted to buy is 3600MHz speed but on AMD website the capabilities of my cpu is only at 2667MHz.

It's a little complicated. The official memory speed is always an underestimate of what the CPU can handle, and you can overclock it to a higher speed. The problem is 1st gen Ryzen has a very mediocre memory controller, and while it can usually run above 2666MT/s, only about half of CPUs can run 3200MT/s by enabling XMP, and while some CPUs can run above that, it takes a ton of effort and quite a bit of luck. 

 

Get a cheaper 3200 CL16 kit, or just don't upgrade your RAM. 

[Dukesilver27-]

I'd rather save the money and don't upgrade the RAM, most likely it won't increase your performance enough to notice.

I'd save for a better CPU down the line.

[Emillio]

I forgot to tell everyone that the reason I wanted to upgrade my ram is because I currently have 2x4GB ram. I wanted to upgrade to 2x8GB or 2x16GB but the MHz realy confused me. Also, in my country memory with 2666MHz is already rare because almost no stores sell ram with 2666MHz anymore. If I buy 3200MHz or 3600MHz memory will it work with my cpu or not? Does my cpu is capable of reading 3200MHz or 3600MHz? This might be a very basic question but I really need to know this so that I can buy the correct ram for my pc.

[Dr0y]

It will work with the cpu, but it just won't run at the speed stated by the ram kit cause the cpu might not be able to

I would get the a 3200 or 3600 kit (not corsair lpx tho) and just use it at whichever speed the cpu memory controller is able to handle (probably 3000 from what I remember reading).

 

a cpu upgrade would be really good in the near future ... something like a used 3600 or 5600 would be quite nice upgrade and those don't have any problem running 3600 ram kit.

[BadBadali]

I would not recommend anything over 3200mhz in DDR4. 3200mhz is the sweet spot for DDR4 builds and seems to work with all AM4 builds. I think Jay and Linus did videos on this.