3200 RAM on Z170 Pro4S

Quick update: It would seem that the verbose RAM specs only list succesful testing for 1 module of RAM. I however have A1 B1 dual channel configuration. I tried lowering it to 2800, which is the highest setting in the UEFI that the website lists as successful with two modules. But now Speccy reports my RAM at 1400 with slight variance.

First some explanation.

The memory controller in Skylake systems is part of the CPU itself, and is one of the major influences in what speed the memory can be operated at. All Skylake processors are guaranteed by Intel to be able to operate memory at a maximum speed of 2133. Any memory speed above 2133 is considered to be an "OC", an over clock of the memory.

It is obviously possible to have DDR4 memory run at higher speeds than 2133, but Intel does not consider a Skylake processor to be defective if it fails to operate memory at speeds above 2133.

A DDR4 memory OC of up to ~3000 is fairly common, the mother board being used becomes more important as the memory speed approaches and surpasses ~3000.

The default speed of any DDR4 memory that is rated to run above 2133, will always be 2133. That is to insure compatibility with all types of mother boards, which really means from budget to high end boards.

As the memory speed increases, it becomes more difficult to operate a greater amount of memory. We can see that in the memory support list.

About your memory and your questions.

There is more to operating any memory at 3200 than just setting the speed to 3200. The DRAM voltage and timings must be adjusted to allow that speed to be reached.

Memory like yours has data programmed into it that has the memory speed, DRAM voltage, timings, and other settings needed to run at 3200. That is called the XMP data, or XMP profile. Your memory has a XMP profile that can be used by a mother board to set all those options automatically.

To use the XMP profile, you must enable that in the UEFI/BIOS, in the DRAM Configuration screen.

Find the Load XMP Setting option and set it to Enabled. That should set the memory speed to 3200, and set the DRAM voltage, etc, automatically. You will need to Save and Exit the UEFI/BIOS before those settings will be applied.

In some cases, you may need to set the memory speed yourself, if it does not automatically change after using the XMP profile.

You said you are using the A1 and B1 slots with your memory. That usually applies only to memory that is of the Double Sided (DS) type, when using one DIMM per channel.

Do you know if your memory is DS, or Single Sided (SS)? I can't tell from the Teamgroup product page for your memory. We can see both SS and DS types for the Teamgroup memory in the Support List. DS means memory chips are on both sides of the memory card, SS means memory chips on only one side of the memory card.

SS memory with two DIMMs works best in the A2 and B2 slots, check your manual about that.

Given the Memory Support list, there is only one model of memory at 3200 or greater that allows two DIMMs to be used. You can always experiment with your memory to see if you can reach 3200 with two DIMMs.

Performance wise, assuming you do not run out of memory, the higher speed memory will usually have better performance. In the case of 2133 vs 3000 or 3200, it will.

Memory timings can cause slower speed memory to be equal in performance to higher speed memory, since the higher speed memory requires slower timings. That's another topic, few things with memory are very simple.

Memory capacity alone does not provide greater performance, unless all the capacity is being used. That causes the use of the Windows Pagefile, which uses disk storage space as a DRAM memory substitute. HDDs and SSDs are much slower than DRAM memory.