Ivybridge i3 with 1866 memory?

Nine Iron

Member
My father is upgrading his computer and will be buying my current memory, so I have the opportunity to upgrade. Given that the pricing of (second-hand) 1600 and 1866 memory is so close these days, I'm wondering if 1866 memory will actually run at 1866 with my Ivy i3 - has anybody tried this?

The Intel boilerplate for the i3 3220 says 1600 max, but then it says this for the new DC stuff, too:).

(If this question has already been answered, feel free to link me.)
 
Mot should / will do 2133 but you may have to roll your sleves up and get in the BIOS

It also depends on the mobo chipset as some have a max of 1600
 
Chipset is B75 - the cheapest one that would get me on the SATA-III ladder:) (one lousy port, but one is better than none). Luckily it supports XMP, so I just n00bed it.

MSI officially says 1600 is the limit... but official limits don't seem to mean anything recently. I suppose I can always get the 1866 if it's cheaper and downclock it to 1600 with slightly tighter timings... timings apparently make sod-all difference to Ivy and Haswell;).
 
B75 usually doesn't support anything higher than 1333/1600. Some vendors choose to unlock it for lower tier processors though.

Back in the day, cheap 775 boards with G31/G35/G41/G45 chipsets wouldn't allow anything higher than 667 for the memory so it's been a trend.

Memory speed and timings hardly matters these days unless you're running an APU and using it's onboard GPU for gaming.

Is your father's system still together? Just jump in the BIOS and see if you can change the memory divider.
 
The manual DRAM frequency won't go over 1600, so I guess it won't let XMP go over 1600, either.

No biggie, really - given the rough price equality of the memory, I was wondering if a free performance bump was on the cards;).
 
I don't think B75 boards support XMP. I could be wrong.

Here in Canada, I can find 2133 mhz memory cheaper than 1600 MHz ones, usually on newegg.

About 18 months ago, an 8 GB kit would go for about 40 bucks. 14 months ago, the same kit would cost 60 bucks. Today, after the Hynix fab fire, expect to pay 80 bucks or more. Kinda painful when you hit rock bottom on pricing and watch it slowly go back up.
 
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