Noobie overclocking question

Neoeclectic · Mar 16, 2013

Hi,

My system:

Asus P8Z77-V Pro
Intel i5-3570K, 3.4 Ghz
Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600, 4x4Gb, XMP, 1.5v

I've been searching several hours for an answer to my questions, and can't seem to find them and now I'm thinking I don't understand the concept clearly.

My intent is to overclock the memory to higher speeds. When I enable XMP the only profile available is "DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24" for my memory which is exactly the listed specs for it. My expectation was that since my memory is already rated 1600 that the profile should be higher than that if it can be overclocked.

Is this due to a limitation to what the processor can support, or am I thinking about this all wrong? I was hoping to clock the memory up to 2133.

And if this is a hardware related limitation is there anyway of knowing what the XMP profile would be for any given set of memory before purchasing it?

dish_moose · Mar 16, 2013

You should have gotten DDR3-2133 then. Some memory will OC but to get 2133 out of DDR-1600 RAM is likely too optimistic without increasing the voltage. The increase in memory speed will do little for your game performance.
-Bruce

Cons29 · Mar 16, 2013

its not about those, when you OC, you increase them (most of the time manually) above it's rated speed. Whether it is GPU , CPU or rams. set things to manual and adjust accordingly.
i would suggest that you do some reading first. just to be safe.

also, note that oc'ing memory does not yield (as far as i know) that much performance increase compared to oc'ing a cpu. a modern cpu like yours can go from 3.x to 4.x without much problem. even 5ghz is not surprising unlike before.
those will give you benefits,

s3anister · Mar 16, 2013

Neoeclectic :

The XMP profile is simply the JEDEC memory extension that allows you to default to that DDR3-1600 setting. Your problem is that to get a higher memory speed you need to manuallychange the memory divider in your BIOS to 1:7 for DDR3-1866 for example; other memory speeds will need a different divider. Now to actually hit that higher speed you'll need to loosen up your memory timings as well.

Btw, I have that same RAM and processor and I've only been able to overclock it to DDR3-1866 CAS 10-11-11-30 1T @ 1.56V. I could maybe go higher but I'm not willing to turn my voltage anywhere near 1.6 or higher.

s3anister · Mar 16, 2013

Cons29 :

I don't know what you've been reading but hitting 5GHz using an Ivy Bridge processor would be surprising.

Cons29 · Mar 16, 2013

oh, my bad, i was thinking of my sandy bridge

yeah i heard that ivy's dont oc as much as sandy's

s3anister · Mar 16, 2013

Cons29 :

Yeah you'd be a lucky person to have a stable 4.8GHz OC using water with Ivy Bridge and only about 1-2% of Ivy Bridge processors have been shown to hit near that 4.8-5GHz mark and be stable. Typical OC max for i5-3570K is 4.4-4.6GHz.

mcnumpty23 · Mar 16, 2013

if you wanted 1600mhz ram that seriously overclocks should have got this

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-017-SA

and its tiny--fits under big heatsinks no problems

they tested it at

- 1600MHz (7-8-8-24 1N) @ 1.40v
- 1866MHz (9-9-9-27 1N) @ 1.40v
- 2000MHz (9-10-10-28 1N) @ 1.45v
- 2133MHz (10-10-10-28 1N) @ 1.45v
- 2400MHz (11-11-11-28 2N) @ 1.50v

Neoeclectic · Mar 16, 2013

s3anister :

I appreciate the great and quick replies.

Okay, so if I understand the only way to really overclock the memory is to manually adjust the timings and the voltage. I read up on adjusting timing and voltage but obviously got it wrong since my PC was failing to POST or boot the OS.

Is there a resource I can read that clearly explains memory dividers and how to adjust timing for the purpose of overclocking?

To clarify is there something I can read that will tell me try setting timings to X and adjusting voltage by Y amount?

s3anister · Mar 16, 2013

Neoeclectic :

s3anister :

I appreciate the great and quick replies.

Okay, so if I understand the only way to really overclock the memory is to manually adjust the timings and the voltage. I read up on adjusting timing and voltage but obviously got it wrong since my PC was failing to POST or boot the OS.

Is there a resource I can read that clearly explains memory dividers and how to adjust timing for the purpose of overclocking?

To clarify is there something I can read that will tell me try setting timings to X and adjusting voltage by Y amount?

Yes. Start here: http://www.masterslair.com/memory-ram-overclocking-guide-ddr3

Be forewarned though, just take that guide as general information as it was intended for use with a much older core architecture. Also, you might want to try setting your timings to 11-11-11-30 2T at 1.6V just to see if you can POST. Once you've managed to POST and get into windows that's when you start playing around with tighter timings and/or less voltage.

Neoeclectic · Mar 16, 2013

Thanks, s3anister. I appreciate the help.

mcnumpty23 · Mar 16, 2013

yeah be carefull thats for older gen

and the ram voltage was higher then 1.65v to 1.5v on your ivy

not sure i would happily put 1.6v through my vengeance on sandybridge

my 1600mhz vengeance will do just over 1700mhz on 1.5v by upping the bclk

but upping the bclk has its own issues

s3anister · Mar 16, 2013

Neoeclectic :

No problem, glad I was able to help.

mcnumpty23 :

You really shouldn't be touching the base clock on Sandy/Ivy unless you have access to LN.

Search

Noobie overclocking question

Neoeclectic

Honorable

s3anister

dish_moose

Splendid

Cons29

Splendid

s3anister

Distinguished

s3anister

Distinguished

Cons29

Splendid

s3anister

Distinguished

mcnumpty23

Polypheme

Neoeclectic

Honorable

s3anister

Distinguished

Neoeclectic

Honorable

mcnumpty23

Polypheme

s3anister

Distinguished

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page