Can the G.Skill Ares line overclock??

Ryan_Fullmer · Oct 13, 2014

I have the 8GB kit of G.Skill ares 1866Mhz RAM and wanted to possibly overclock it to 2133. I can change the voltage and timings and have it boot successfully and be stable, however when I change the frequency to 2133, it fails to boot. Help??

Deleted member 217926 · Oct 13, 2014

The benefits of overclocking RAM are tiny and generally not worth the potential instability. It also greatly depends on what CPU you have. Really the only CPUs that can make use of faster RAM are the Haswell lineup. Even then the very small benefits are only seen in video encoding and editing. Gaming sees no increase at all.

If you do try to overclock you have to do it like any overclock. One small step at a time followed by stability testing. Try 50Mhz increases.

Ryan_Fullmer · Oct 14, 2014

I'm actually using an A10-5800k apu and I've seen a good improvement over 1866 and 2133. But I don't think my bios allows me to overclock my RAM in small increments. I can look around to see what I can do though. Thanks for the reply.

Karadjgne · Oct 14, 2014

What are the stock timings, and what timings/voltage did you change them too.
You may also have to bump up cpu/Nb I believe it is. AMD cpus are notorious for weak memory controllers.

Deleted member 217926 · Oct 14, 2014

Ahh, an APU will actually benefit even more than Haswell will from high speed RAM but only in respect to the onboard graphics. Make sure under the timings you have the command rate set to 2T and not 1T ( it might be written as 2N or 1N depending on the motherboard manufacturer ). That should open up some overclocking room.

Ryan_Fullmer · Oct 14, 2014

The stock command rate is 2T and the stock timings are 9-10-9-28 with 1.5v. I changed the timings to 10-11-10-30 and the voltage to 1.55v

gskill support · Oct 14, 2014

Boosting CPU/NB Voltage takes it to another level.

Ryan_Fullmer · Oct 16, 2014

I set the timings to the way I have above and I also set them to 11-11-11-33 at 1.55v and 1.6v and I was slowly increasing the cpu/nb voltage and I stopped increasing it when I got to +.1v with another fail boot because I didn't want to go too high. Is that too high or could I squeeze a little more out?

Deleted member 217926 · Oct 16, 2014

It's been years and several generations of chips ago since I overclocked an AMD processor so I'm afraid I can't help you here with anything more detailed than you could find with a quick google search. I will PM one of our mods who might be able to help you better than I can for you though. Tradesman1 is his screen name.

Ryan_Fullmer · Oct 16, 2014

Thanks, and thanks for your help anyways

Deleted member 217926 · Oct 16, 2014

Anytime!

anbello262 · Oct 16, 2014

I would get the voltage directly to 1.65, and then up the frequency to 2133, with very loose timings, like 12-14-14-34 or the like. Then, step by step lower the latencies until you find your stability limits.

Tradesman1 · Oct 16, 2014

What mobo, APU and model # of the DRAM you are using? They have a few sets of 1866 Ares?

Ryan_Fullmer · Oct 16, 2014

Tradesman1 :

motherboard is msi a88xm-gaming, apu is a10-5800k and RAM is model F3-1866C9D-8GAB

Tradesman1 · Oct 16, 2014

OK, initially try setting the DRAM to 2133, at 10-11-10-30 - set DRAM voltage to 1.6 and then go to CPU/NB voltage and set it to 1.2 - the voltages are safe

give that a try and if all is well we can try fine tuning the timings and voltages

Ryan_Fullmer · Oct 16, 2014

Tradesman1 :

The stock CPU/NB voltage is 1.25v, so how much higher should i go from there?

Tradesman1 · Oct 16, 2014

Try 1.3 -I try to keep under 1.4 but have seen it take more, start w/ 1.3 , if no joy, DRAM voltage to 1.65, if still no, give me a shout, may want to loosen timings a bit more

Ryan_Fullmer · Oct 17, 2014

Tradesman1 :

Alright, so I did what you said. Set dram voltage to 1.6 and 1.65 with the timings at 10-11-10-30 with the CPU/NB at 1.3. It didn't boot on either test so I raised the timings to 12-12-12-36 for a little bit of wiggle room and the DRAM voltage to 1.6 with CPU/NB voltage to 1.35 and I got it to boot into windows for about 2 minutes before crashing.

Tradesman1 · Oct 17, 2014

Could try DRAM to 1.65 (still safe), but if no joy there, think your CPU may have a weaker MC (memory controller) than the norm or possibly a weak stick(s) of DRAM

Ryan_Fullmer · Oct 18, 2014

Tradesman1 :

Alright thanks for all your help anyways

Also, my mobo gives me the option to adjust the CPU/NB ratio? Could adjustments to that help or should it stay the way it is?

Deleted member 217926 · Oct 18, 2014

I'm just not sure what the IMC ( integrated memory controller ) on an APU is capable of. AMD in general is quite a bit behind Intel especially with Haswell so it is entirely possible that stick would do 2133 quite easily on Haswell. It could also be that the Ares is not quite up to the same quality as GSkill's higher end stuff as well. Ares was to be avoided on Sandy and Ivy Bridge systems due to the high VCCSA / VCCIO ( system agent voltage ) required for XMP. It was too close to the IMC's limits and could actually degrade the CPU. Ares has always been safe for AMD though.

Can the G.Skill Ares line overclock??

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