Memory Clock Speed?

[blazed1k]

I have a 4GB DDR3-1600, does that mean I need to set the memory clock speed to 1600Mhz on the BIOS? And When I looked at the specs of the motherboard, it doesnt support 1600.

In the BIOS it gives me 4 options for the Memory Clock:
X4.00 (It sets to 800Mhz)
X5.33 (Sets to 1066Mhz)
X6.66 (Sets to 1333Mhz)
X8.00 (Sets to 1600Mhz)

Which one should i set it to? It was X5.33 by default(it says its something from the SPD profile thing), and now I have set it to X8.00. Is that correct?

Motherboard
http://www.gigabyte-usa.com/Products/Motherboard/Products_Spec.aspx?ClassValue=Motherboard&ProductID=3284&ProductName=GA-770TA-UD3

And this RAM
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0317775

 

[hunter315]

Yup, 8x is what you want, but make sure you set the voltage to 1.65V too or you are unlikely to have a stable system.

Your board wont automatically load timings for any speed above 1333MHz which is why it doesnt specifically list support for 1600MHz, but it does say 1866MHz (O.C) so it will support any memory speed up to 1866MHz, you just have to set everything manually.

 

[blazed1k]

Thank you for your respond. I have another question. I cannot set voltage to 1.65V. The closest one is 1.64V. Should i leave it to 1.64V or set something higher, like 1.67V?

 

[hunter315]

Since its an AMD system that isnt sensitive to higher memory voltages, i would go for 1.67V just to make sure you are at or above what OCZ considered the minimum.

 

[blazed1k]

Thank you so much. The reason i didnt select 1.67V before was because everything both 1.64V is highlighted red.

 

[hunter315]

Weird it would make it red, AMD systems didnt tie the memory controller voltage to the memory voltage like the intel core i series so there isnt a risk to the processor with higher memory voltage and JEDEC states that chips have to be able to withstand 1.975V without taking damage so 1.67 is still well inside the safe range, maybe it just wants to encourage you to stay low.

 

[jeroly]

You can also probably change the clock speed to something higher than 200MHz and then use a lower multiplier; e.g. overclock to 300 and use the 5.33 multiplier. That would give you a memory speed of 1600 so the RAM would be running within spec.

Of course there's no assurance that your system can support this particular level of overclocking.

What you certainly don't want to do is to use that 8x multiplier and then overclock, as the RAM would be operating above 1600MHz and would probably run into problems as memory doesn't overclock well in general.