Massive FPS drop in some games when overclocking RAM

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belshire

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Aug 21, 2017
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510
I started playing Offworld Trading Company, and was getting terrible frame rates. I played around a bit and realized that it's being caused by my RAM overclock. I had XMP enabled in BIOS; when I turn that off, I get a solid 60fps in-game. When I enable it, my fps starts at around 50fps and then gradually, but quickly, drops to 7 or 8 fps. My GPU is getting old, but it shouldn't have a problem with this game, and it doesn't when my RAM overclock is off.

I tried manually overclocking the RAM, and I get the same results. Overclocking my CPU seems to have no negative effect.

I've tried upping the RAM voltage manually, but it didn't help. I also tried updating my MoBo BIOS version, which also didn't help.

Specs:

OS: Windows 10
MOBO: MSI Gaming M5
CPU: i5-6600K
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaw 4 DDR4 3000 (2x16GB)
GPU: GTX 670

I've tried turning off any CPU overclock to make sure something wasn't conflicting, but it had no effect. I've used various CPUID programs to confirm that everything is running at the speeds they should be, nothing seems to be getting throttled while in-game. My memory usage is under 10%.

Besides the fps drop, everything else becomes less responsive while the game's running (switching windows, etc.).

Anyone know what might be causing this?
 
Solution
Vellinious
The only other thing I could suggest is running through Memtest 64, for at least 300% coverage...and maybe an hour or two with Realbench stability test, make sure everything is stable, and you're not getting any errors anywhere.
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belshire

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Aug 21, 2017
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510


Yeah I have, everything seems fine stability-wise. If the memory is causing errors then I'd expect crashes and/or blue screens.
 
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belshire

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Aug 21, 2017
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510


I noticed the same problem in another game a while back, but at the time didn't figure out what the issue was and eventually just stopped playing. So I can't say 100% yes.

I'll try re-enabling the RAM overclock but setting the voltage extra high and see if that makes a difference.
 
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belshire

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Aug 21, 2017
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510
OK, I did some more testing. Everything works fine with the RAM clocked at up to 2600 MHz. At 2600 MHz, I can lower the voltage and tighten the timings, and everything is still fine. At 2666 MHz and above, the problem occurs. At 2666 MHz, I tried loosening the timings and upping the voltage, but nothing helps.

2666 MHz is well below the XMP profile for the RAM. Also, I ran some memory stress tests at 3000 Mhz and didn't produce any errors.

By the way, the problem I'm having either happens or doesn't, there doesn't seem to be any in-between. At 2600 MHz, the game runs at 60fps continuously, at 2666 MHz and up, the frame rate plummets.

Maybe something is messing up between the video card and the system memory above a certain memory speed? Is there something else I should be adjusting in BIOS to compensate, like the PCI-e voltage or frequency?
 
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belshire

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Aug 21, 2017
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510


Interesting. I'll look and see if I can find anything silently changing when I change the memory speed. bclk is staying the same, but maybe something else isn't.
 
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Vellinious

Vellinious

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Dec 3, 2013
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The only other thing I could suggest is running through Memtest 64, for at least 300% coverage...and maybe an hour or two with Realbench stability test, make sure everything is stable, and you're not getting any errors anywhere.
 
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