can there be a compatibility issue between cpu and ram?

[dragonfly522]

I have asked this question on a different forum and I want to see if I get a different answer. I want to buy a cpu, an AMD Phenom II X6 1090T BE, with DDR3 1600 MHz RAM. I am pretty sure of the answer, but I got a different answer than what I thought it would be before this. So, is there a ceiling to the amount of ram speed that a cpu can handle? I think no, and I was told that the motherboard is what determines the compability. I have read the specs on the mobo mfr websites for the mobos that I want and I see that they only support certain speeds of ram. But that's not what I am talking about. I just want to confirm what I was told that the cpu and the ram need to have a certain compatibility regarding the speed of the ram.

 

[Wildcard]

I think most of the newer computers have the CPU running on the FSB and the memory on its own bus connected to the northbridge chip. They are capable at running at different ratio's and speeds unlike how they were setup years ago where it all ran on the same bus. I think that as long as your system board can support the RAM speed you are looking for, it wont make much of a difference to the CPU. This might not hold true on all system boards though.

You can read more about it here : Front-side bus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia