Using 'not supported ram speed'?

[KD28]

Hi all, building new rig and had a few questions on configuring ram. I have the ASRock z77 Extreme4 which states it'd support the following:

4×240pin DDR3 2800+(OC)/2400(OC)/2133(OC)/1866(OC)/1600/1333/1066

Was wondering if there be any benefits/harm to run my ram at a 'non supported' speed?

I have a set of 1866 mhz Patriots

Without increasing DRAM (leaving it at recommended 1.5) I can run ram stable at:

1600 9-9-9-28
1866 10-11-10-26
2000 11-11-11-28

1) I've gathered that higher speed > tighter timings?
2) Since 2000mhz is not listed as a supported speed (tho well within max of board), is there any benefit/harm to running it that way?
3) I can get it up to 2133 11-12-12-28 if I bump voltage to 1.65 but read that this was the max recommended so was staying 1.5. Would this actually be a better option?

If pertinent rest of build:
i7-3770k (running at 4.5ghz)
Hyper 212 EVO
Seasonic 750w 80plus gold
Powercolor 7870 myst
Samsung 840 non pro 500gb
WD Caviar Blue 1tb
Seagate Barracuda 2tb
Corsair 650D

Also if pertinent, rig is built mainly for Photoshopping. Current rig in sig (with gpu upgraded to 6850) hangs quite a bit when I work on large files (1gb files sometimes)

Thanks!

 

[drescherjm]

I've gathered that higher speed > tighter timings?

In most cases that will be true.

Since 2000mhz is not listed as a supported speed (tho well within max of board), is there any benefit/harm to running it that way?

Remember that the memory controller is on the CPU and is not part of the motherboard. Ivy bridge CPU support up to lower DDR3 1600 and sandy bridge CPUs support up DDR3 1333 over that you are overclocking your CPUs memory controller. Both CPUs support 1.5V ram or lower.

 

[Skripka]

Just set the ram at 1866 and don't worry about it. With 1155 procs , the gains in performance of any ram over 1333 are negligible in real life.

 

[drescherjm]

Just set the ram at 1866 and don't worry about it. With 1155 procs , the gains in performance of any ram over 1333 are negligible in real life.

Agreed, most applications (even games) have a less than 3% improvement with ram faster than DDR3 1333. There are however a few exceptions.

 

[KD28]

Understood that gains, if any, would be minimal. However, I can have higher ram speed without adding extra voltage/heat, and given that the ram runs stable (1hr in memtest86) itself, would there be any reason not to?