Can I use faster memory?

[mamamia88]

I have an older dell I'm trying to repurpose. I got a q8300 for a whopping $13 on amazon and someone on craigslist is selling 8gb of corsair ddr3-1600 for $10. I had just bought 4gb for $15 on reddit so thinking i might just flip that on ebay or ask the guy i bought it from if i can return it assuming craigslist deal goes through. My chipset the q45 apparently only takes 1333. Will it scale down or just not work at all?

[Guest Kloaked]

Depends on the motherboard from my understanding. I was able to use 2133 Mhz memory with XMP enabled on my Z77 board with a 2500k, while the 2500k spec sheet says it only goes up to 1333 Mhz.

[mamamia88]

2 minutes ago, Kloaked said:

Depends on the motherboard from my understanding. I was able to use 2133 Mhz memory with XMP enabled on my Z77 board with a 2500k, while the 2500k spec sheet says it only goes up to 1333 Mhz.

yeah it's just an old dell motherboard. According to specs it shows it can run up to 1333. If it downclocks to 1333 i don't care at all. $10 for 8gb of ram is a damn good deal especially since it's corsair. The $15 ram I bought was micron with no heatsinks at all. Not that it's necessary. I think at one point I had a dell optiplex with similar corsair ram in it.