Hi! I'm building a new DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) PC and I'm trying to find suitable RAM for it, which turned out to be harder than I thought..
Basically I would like to get RAM with the highest (officially supported) base speed, because I've never delved into overclocking RAM/CPU and for whatever reason I fear that overclocking RAM and CPU might increase the risk of system instability. My fear may be totally groundless of course. But I was looking at the specs for Intel's i7-7700K processor and under "Memory Types" it says "DDR4-2133/2400". I would be correct in assuming that both those RAM speeds are officially supported, right? But when I read the specs on my Asus Prime Z270-A motherboard it says "2133 MHz / 2400 MHz (O.C.)" and so on. I guess the "(O.C.)" means overclocked. So I find this a bit strange. If I were to install a kit of 2400 MHz DDR4 RAM, would the RAM then be automatically downclocked to 2133 MHz? That would kinda defeat the purpose of buying 2400 MHz RAM if I don't intend to overclock the RAM, right?
What does "officially supported" mean in this sense, regarding the Intel processor? Is it that the 7700K is guaranteed to work with those two speeds (2133/2400) but overclocking the RAM to higher speeds might void the warranty on the CPU? I hope you can excuse me for my newbie questions here.. Hehe! Just trying to figure it out. It's been a looong time since my last build (which was a Core 2 Duo!)..
I understand that the 7700K unlocked with overclocking in mind (I bought the "K" version for the slightly higher speed, but having the option to overclock is a bonus), so I'd like to ask : IF I decided to try my hand at pushing some more speed out of the processor, what would be a reasonably safe frequency, with stability in mind - AND that I have the necessary CPU cooling in place of course. I just ordered a big Noctua cooler, hoping that would suffice for both scenarios.
That was a lot of questions, so thanks for your patience if you read through it all! Hoping someone would like to share some wisdom and very much needed advice! :-)
