I7 950 on P6X58D-E w. CORSAIR DOMINATOR GT 2000MHZ CL8

[tbresson]

My hardware:
MB: ASUS P6X58D-E
GFX: ASUS EAH6970
CPU: INTEL i7 950 3,06 GHz
RAM : CORSAIR 6GB DDR3 INTEL I7 DOMINATOR GT 2000MHZ CL8 (CMT6GX3M3A2000C8)

Hi. My issue has a little background story (if someone has heard of this problem then I'm interested, if not just proceed to the actual problem) but if you wanna skip to the issue go to "TL;DR"

I recently decided to move all my hardware from one case to another (for more airflow). After booting up I had issues with my graphics card running amok with fans at 100% and really high temperatures on the GPU which made it impossible to run any 3D applications/games without either crashing the PC or accept my PC was my new vacuumcleaner.

In frustration I tried everthing even upgraded my motherboard firmware to no avail. I was very close to RMA the GFX card when I thought; why not try and install the card in the 2nd PCI-E v2.0 slot since my motherboard has three GFX card slots. Doing this gave me BIOS trouble and I had to reset my CMOS to boot up. After installing the GFX drivers everything seemed fine. The temperatures dropped (before it was usually around 38 degrees celsius with one monitor and double up for two monitors - now it was 38 degrees for both my monitors).

I launched SWTOR and everything worked perfect. No amok fans and no crashes. I have no idea why the secondary PCI-E v2.0 slot worked and the 1st one didn't (they both run at 16x speed). I wasn't about to accept it without trying to find out why so I decided the issue had to be with the motherboard slot (#1) or that the CMOS clearing had something to do with it. I also considered that the hardware might be to close to eachother making some sensor picking up the wrong information. I havn't completed my test yet because I need my RAM timings.

!!! TL;DR !!!
My RAM timings where cleared with the CMOS reset and I couldn't remember how to set it up and I wanted those settings to be correct before I proceeded and here's where I need some help or perhaps just some verification. After the CMOS-reset the CPU frequency in the bios was correct but the DRAM frequency was at 1066 MHz. I changed the timings under "DRAM Timing Control" but it didn't change anything: (almost everything else was on auto)

DRAM CAS# Latency: 8
DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay: 9
DRAM RAS# PRE Time: 8
DRAM RAS# ACT Time: 24

So I decided to try out the X.M.P. feature of the Ai Overclock Tuner. Profile #1 seems to be correct (below are my BIOS settings).

My questions is really this: With these settings do I get the performance of the products I bought (without considering actual overclocking) - and as a side question is the DRAM Frequency I see in CPU-Z/Windows correct even if it's half-ish of the value in the BIOS?

BIOS INFO:
X.M.P. Profile Info: 2000MHz-8-9-8-24-2N-1.65V-1.25V

CPU Ratio Setting: 22.0
Intel(R) SpeedStep(TM) Tech: Enabled
Xtreme Phase Full Power Mode: Auto
BCLK Frequency: 143
PCIE Frequency: 100
DRAM Frequency: DDR3-2006MHz
UCLK Frequency: Auto
QPI Link Data RAte: Auto

CPU Voltage Control: Manual
CPU Voltage: Auto
CPU PLL Voltage: Auto
QPI/DRAM Core Voltage: 1.40000 (PINK)
IOH Voltage: Auto
IOH PCIE Voltage: Auto
ICH Voltage: Auto
ICH PCIE Voltage: Auto

DRAM Bus Voltage: 1.65 (RED)
DRAMA DATA REF Voltage on CHA: Auto
DRAMA CTRL REF Voltage on CHA: Auto
DRAMA DATA REF Voltage on CHB: Auto
DRAMA CTRL REF Voltage on CHB: Auto
DRAMA DATA REF Voltage on CHC: Auto
DRAMA CTRL REF Voltage on CHC: Auto

Load-Line Calibration: Auto
CPU Differential Amplitude: Auto
CPU Clock Skew: Auto
CPU Spread Spectrum: Auto
IOH Clock Skew: Auto
PCIE Spread Spectrum: Auto

DRAM Timing Control:
1st Information: 8-9-8-24-7-98-14-8-28-0 (GREY)
DRAM CAS# Latency: Auto
DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay: Auto
DRAM RAS# PRE Time: Auto
DRAM RAS# ACT Time: Auto
DRAM RAS# to RAS# Delay: Auto
DRAM REF Cycle Time: Auto
DRAM WRITE Recovery Time: Auto
DRAM READ to PRE Time: Auto
DRAM FOUR ACT WIN Time: Auto
DRAM Back-To-Back CAS# Delay: Auto
2nd Information: 2N-61-62-62 (GREY)
DRAM Timing Mode: 2N
DRAM Round Trip Latency on CHA: Auto
DRAM Round Trip Latency on CHB: Auto
DRAM Round Trip Latency on CHC: Auto
3rd Information: 7-7-19-9-9-9-7-6-4-7-7-4 (GREY)
DRAM WRITE To READ Delay(DD): Auto
DRAM WRITE To READ Delay(DR): Auto
DRAM WRITE To READ Delay(SR): Auto
DRAM READ To WRITE Delay(DD): Auto
DRAM READ To WRITE Delay(DR): Auto
DRAM READ To WRITE Delay(SR): Auto
DRAM READ To READ Delay(DD): Auto
DRAM READ To READ Delay(DR): Auto
DRAM READ To READ Delay(SR): Auto
DRAM WRITE To WRITE Delay(DD): Auto
DRAM WRITE To WRITE Delay(DR): Auto
DRAM WRITE To WRITE Delay(SR): Auto

According to CPU-Z (v. 1.60.1.x64):
General:
Type: DDR3
Size: 6144 MBytes
Channels#: Tripe
DC Mode: (GREY)
NB Frequency: 3829.8 MHz

Timings:
DRAM Frequency: 957.5 MHz
FSBRAM: 2:14
CAS# Latency (CL): 8.0 clocks
RAS# to CAS# Delay (tRCD): 9 clocks
RAS# Precharge (tRP): 8 clocks
Cycle Time (tRAS): 24 clocks
Row Refresh Cycle Time (tRFC): 98 clocks
Command Rate (CR): 2T
DRAM Idle Timer: (GREY)
Total CAS# (tRDRAM): (GREY)
Row To Column (tRCD): (GREY)

 

[tbresson]

It appears my machine is sort of unstable at these settings even though I thought they looked alright.

Prime95 crashes my PC almost instantly and MemTest fails after about 1½ hours.

I lowered the BCLK number a bit to make the CPU frequency closer to the actual value (3.06) and thereby lowering the RAM speed.

Prime95 stille crashes but not instantly. Memtest works fine now. I guess the best thing to do is to keep lowering the RAM speed until Prime95 is stable -perhaps something closer to 1600 MHz rather than 2000 MHz...