My memory seems to run at 800 MHz

[simo292a]

My two Hyper X DDR3 ram blocks seem to run at 800MHz for some reason when i look CPU-Z even though i have set it to 1600MHz in the bios. Any ideas?

[xgdi99]

check the memory voltage, maybe you're running at way less voltage than what the memory needs

[YubinTheBunny]

It's dual channel, so 2x800 = 1600mhz.

[LabRat]

multiply it x2 = 1600. DDR, look it up.

[mariushm]

It's correct.  All memories (DDR2, DDR3 and DDR4) are double data rate, meaning there's two bits per clock sent, and it's just easier to say the memories run at 1600 Mhz instead of saying 2 x 800 Mhz

So CPU-Z reports the real frequency the memory runs at, which is half the advertised speed.  The advertised speed makes it easy to do the math and determine things, as you don't have to multiply by 2.

 

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_data_rate

 

GDDR5 is quad data rate, you multiply real frequency by 4.

 

PS. Dual channel is something else, it just pairs two memory sticks and makes them work together, so that instead of writing 64 bits at a time, the memory controller can write 128 bits at a time and this quantity is split into two memory sticks, two 64 bits write commands. Basically, it helps write larger quantities of data and read them back in half the time, making things faster with the only downside of having to own two memory sticks.

DDR4 doesn't have this concept anymore, it's all single channel, one stick per channel.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, YubinTheBunny said:

It's dual channel, so 2x800 = 1600mhz.

wrong.

it's double data rate, so 2x800=1600.

[simo292a]

1 minute ago, YubinTheBunny said:

It's dual channel, so 2x800 = 1600mhz.

Oh ok ty i just got a little confused when i saw that.

[soup]

DDR = Double Data Rate.

 

Memory frequency 800 MHz

Memory speed 2 X 800 = 1600 MHz