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[general overclocking] why fiddle with the memory?

Last response: in Overclocking
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good day to you all, let me ask my question here since, as i've experienced, you people know what you're doing and can give decent and informative answers.
i've read some guides on overclocking my i7 920 (with a P6T SE mobo, stock cooling), but there's one thing i don't get.

these are the guides i've read:
http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/overclocking/22106-core-...
and
http://www.overclock.net/intel-cpus/538439-guide-overcl...

now, they both state that you should alter settings in your memory (i've been mostly reading the top one, Clunk's guide, i find it easier to read though the lower one gives nice explanations to the terms involved in overclocking), but i don't see why i should do that.

i get why i should pin my CPU voltage, and not put in on auto, but after that, why not just increase the BCLK? because that's all i want right? why should i go and fiddle with DRAM timings, they scare the hell out of me because i don't have the slightest clue as to what the **** i'm doing, lol.

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so, tl;dr version:
why should i fiddle with memory timings and whatnot for a basic (trying to reach 4.0GHZ) overclock?

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since i cannot edit my post, for some reason:

another small related question: i have some pretty bad memory right now (4gb D-DATA or something kit, is DDR3 1333mhz though), how much will i benefit from getting a, say, Corsair 6gb 1600mhz kit?
CPUs Expert

Your fine with ddr3 1333 until somewhere around 3400ghz or over 3.5ghz if you leave turbo on. So in this case you manually set voltage for the cpu and a 8 ram divider with a 16 for the uncore. That way your not running the ram out of spec. The guides tell you to set timings manually because they will be more stable if you set factory timings and voltage. It's not really fiddling, rather proper setup.

Cygnus x-1 said:
Your fine with ddr3 1333 until somewhere around 3400ghz or over 3.5ghz if you leave turbo on. So in this case you manually set voltage for the cpu and a 8 ram divider with a 16 for the uncore. That way your not running the ram out of spec. The guides tell you to set timings manually because they will be more stable if you set factory timings and voltage. It's not really fiddling, rather proper setup.


tnx for your reply :) .

but, why would it go wrong at ~3.4ghz? and what on earth do you mean by "an 8 ram divider with a 16 for the uncore"? i really don't understand any of that xD.

i'm reading up on RAM timings now, but i haven't seen any of that yet...
CPUs Expert

If you look at the ram frequency in bios, 8 represents the lowest value. Uncore should be double the ram speed or 16. So before overclocking, set your ram to the lowest setting and set uncore to double that of the ram speed. So with everything at stock your looking at 2133 for the uncore and 1067 for the ram frequency. You do this before overclocking the cpu, so your other parts won't go faster than intended or faster than they are capable.

Now while your in the bios you will want to set ram voltage to what ever the ram voltage is rated at. To do that you go to dram bus voltage and set it to 1.65,1.5, or what ever they are rated at. Under dram timing control is where you set the ram timings. So that is where you set the first 4 main timing values for your ram. For example 9-9-9-24. The rest you can leave on auto.

You can leave qpi link speed on auto as well as qpi/dram voltage, unless you run into stability issues. If you do, you might need to up the qpi a little, stock is 1.2v I believe.

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