Do I need to manually set the voltage after building?

highsis

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Apr 22, 2011
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Hello, I just finished my first built up computer ever.

I purchased two - two sets of 4g ram separately because somehow this ram was only sold in pair.

I'm afraid if this dual channel is messed up. It works flawlessly, but the voltage displayed is somewhere around 1.45~1.46(keeps changing) while the proper voltage for my ram shown in its product description is 1.6



http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231431 - I bought two pairs of these.

I'm using p67 board from MSI, and 2600k CPU.




1. Do I need to manually change the voltage to the value in the product description? I do not need overclocking for now :)

2. What is XML profile, and how do I enable it?

3. I left bios untouched. Are there anything I need to configure to optimize the computer?



Any tips are greatly appreciated.

I had previously upgraded my computer to 8gb/2500k about a month ago, which had to be RMAed because of motherboard failure. But I remember they were actually 'faster' when running a game than current 16gb/2600k setup. I wonder what is wrong with my current system. : :sleep:







 
Solution
The voltage shown for the RAM is recommended / maximum. If it's working fine at 1.45V-ish, then don't panic. It's a common practice in the quiet computing community to under-volt the CPU and RAM to use less power and generate less heat.

Do you have concrete measurements that the 2500K was faster, or is it just a feeling? And how big a difference is it?

It's quite possible that the game is limited by the speed of your graphics card, for example, so the change of CPU and RAM is making no difference at all. It's also possible that some change you have made is slowing down the graphics card, making the game slower.

Do you need 16GB of RAM for anything else you are doing on the computer? The game is highly unlikely to be making use of all...

compulsivebuilder

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Jun 10, 2011
578
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19,160
The voltage shown for the RAM is recommended / maximum. If it's working fine at 1.45V-ish, then don't panic. It's a common practice in the quiet computing community to under-volt the CPU and RAM to use less power and generate less heat.

Do you have concrete measurements that the 2500K was faster, or is it just a feeling? And how big a difference is it?

It's quite possible that the game is limited by the speed of your graphics card, for example, so the change of CPU and RAM is making no difference at all. It's also possible that some change you have made is slowing down the graphics card, making the game slower.

Do you need 16GB of RAM for anything else you are doing on the computer? The game is highly unlikely to be making use of all that RAM. You could try removing one bank of RAM and seeing if the game runs faster; it's possible, albeit unlikely, that it might - some motherboards run (slightly) faster with one bank than with two. Just make sure you leave two sticks in one bank - if your motherboard has two colours of DIMM sockets, make sure both sticks are in the same colour socket.
 
Solution