What does ram speed do?

[farhanorakzai]

Is there a noticeable real world difference between 1600mhz and something like 2133?

[Archangel1994]

When using creation tools like photoshop, Sony Vegas then yes you will see a difference but not in gaming.

[Clyne]

if you have a apu then yes there is a difference 

[MegaDave91]

If the 2133 has high CL, then it can be no faster than 1600mhz CL9.

[Thecrazyswede]

For APU systems ? Yes definitely, For rendering and graphics work ? Definitely, For gaming on other systems then APU's ?, No.

[Mooshi]

The difference is minute considering the premium. Barring an APU, that's like an extra 1-2FPS IF that for games on top of a slight speed bump to things like productive software and a ramdisk. In the real world can you feel it test, no. My kit can do 2133, but I keep it at 1866 because the difference is so low and because I'd rather keep ram at 1.5v instead of 1.65v.

[SovietOnion]

If the 2133 has high CL, then it can be no faster than 1600mhz CL9.

Finally, someone that gets it.

[GloriousPain]

Other than APUs or Rendering it won't help much cause all it does is make it so your CPU can access your RAM more times per second (which is why the Mhz is also called Mega-Transfers/Second) and Cas latency (just consider it lag or response time) usually gets higher as Mega-transfers get higher so except in cases of highly queued up things(which is caused by rendering as all the pixels/frames needed to be rendered are pre queued up) or APUs (as APUs essentially use ram to store rendered frames until delivering them to the monitor) you won't notices a difference as the Cas latency will take so long that the extra speed won't be able to over compensate for it so some Mhz+Cas combinations are faster or slower than other 1600Mhz with Cas 9 is usually agreed to be standard and it's probably best to run at this as it's safest for your RAM and you wouldn't even notice a difference OCing it 9/10 times and all you'd do is harm the ram/kill it faster...