Can the ram fold w/3.4v and hold up?

[Silver]

Those of you that know me know pretty much what I am about. Question, I have never run 3.4v through the ram. I got the ocz booster and found that the corsair 3200 can run at 2,3,3,6 at 250 1:1 in dual channel. Can the ram hold together folding at that voltage? It is presently doing a 125 point qmd and has made it through convergence. Though early on after 5 frames she is showing 4:10 per frame for just a tad under 7 hours to finish. Do you think the ram can hold up? I have good case cooling and is clocked at 250 x 14 for 3.5Ghz. Cpu temp is good, it is just the ram I am a little worried about.

[davekusa]

holy crap 3.4V??????? I'm runnin the same stuff I thought spec was 2.6 +/- .1
Can I run it at 2.8 and not worry about it?

[Silver]

I've always run mine at 3.1v as it would not hold the tight timings I was looking for at the speeds I was looking for. It has spent the last 1.5 to 2 yrs at 3.1v.

SSS put me on to this and some Mushkin a while back (long while back). The Mushkin has died but the Corsair 2 x 256 sticks have been going strong. Figured with the P4 they would give me the biggest bang. Running the Geil 4400 sticks at 300fsb with 3.2v on the AMD 754 as the timings are looser and need a high fsb.

Got to do something to catch ya DaveKusa. Only thing left is to tweak the h@## out of the four boxes. Looking to switch out the epox board on the 2800+ next days off with a $64 DFI board to see if I can squeeze another 150mhz out of her. I am not even matching your output and it is getting pretty hard to see you, being so far ahead and all. :p

[TollhouseFrank]

uhm... the last time I saw RAM hold 3.3 volts without dying was back in the days of 168pin SD-RAM.... and back then, that was standard...

[walaka7]

From what I've seen, yes that stuff SHOULD hold. However it would be wise to look into active cooling it you want it to last. But hey, you already know that ;) One thing, though, that really helped me when hotting up the board and everything on it, was a non contact pyrometer. It is a very good guide on where and how much cooling you need in a given area. I have a 8500 DV that three years ago has seen its share of voltage and it started crapping out around 169 (after my NIC let go at 171). It turns out there was a chip that was not ram or GPU that was the cause. I threw a small sink on it and it allowed me to burn up more stuff :D

[Jimbob7]

Should be fine, sit a fan ontop keep them cool, i wouldn't worry to much. :)

[psyshack]

Silver

I would be running the 4400 on the p4 with loose timings and clocking the crap out of it. Then have the corsair on the 754 with ultra tight timings and 1t

I can put my corsair 3700 on my a64 with 3,3,3,7 and 2t at 2.6ghz,, then put the patriot in with2,3,2,5 1t, same cpu speed and it smokes the slower timings.

[KrisMCool]

I've had poor results from P4s and RAM and high voltage. Not dying, just not performing up to expectations. I run my A64 rig at 3.4v (or higher) 24/7 with no ill results. I use a fan over the DIMMs and a thermal probe against the ICs to check temps. As an example, I'm back to my BH5s on the A64 because I retested / reburned them and they're clean up to 265MHz @ 3.6v (Blues stopped at 258 @ 3.5v, not bad for $120). I've had the set for about 2 years and they've never performed as well in the past as they do now, now that I feed them high voltage on a regular basis. Check the memory forum - no one there is afraid to run 3.4v daily (with the right memory, mobo and cooling). I can't speak for your particular memory, but old and new BH / CH ICs will have no real problems running high vdimm under the right conditions.

[davekusa]

ok, I have the corsair xms ddr 3200 2-2-2-5 can I run this at 2.9V 100% cpu usage folding 24/7 and not melt a hole in the bottom of my case? Or is 2.9v a standard overclock voltage?

The next questions is should I have bought a ddr 4400 instead of the 3200??? I'm kind of new to the DDR/DDR2 thing (RDRAM ROCKED)

[Silver]

As always, disclaimer. For several years I was into benching and for the last couple I have been running 3.1v on all my sticks. Presently that is the cheap 3200 in the dual xeons, corsair xms3200 in the P4 (at 3.4 for the last couple of days) and prior to that in numerous other systems. Geil 4400 is at 3.1 in both the 3000+ and the 2800+. My experience with DDR is that 3.1v in well ventilated cases is not a problem.

[Tebore]

It depends heavily on the ICs on the stick. If it's say BH5 then 3.3 Volts is perfectly fine for 24/7 and it'll work for at least 5 years.

If I recall correctly BH5 was designed to work in multipurpose DRAM applications which is why you might see it on harddrives and where ever RAM might be. To do that it had to comply with the older SDRAM spec which called for 3.3volts.

If it's say older middleage CH5 or crappier Infinieon then I'd worry a bit.

[AlabamaCajun]

At some point the voltage will start pushing electrons across gaps in the circuits.
Do prime it for a couple of days before running data, sendiing in bad data just junks the resullts at the labs.

[Silver]

At some point the voltage will start pushing electrons across gaps in the circuits.
Do prime it for a couple of days before running data, sendiing in bad data just junks the resullts at the labs.

And that brings us full circle on the original question. I do (really) run 3.1v on all of my ram. 3.4 on the the Intel seems to be doing fine. The worry factor is falling. Still 36% voltage ocs reminds one of the days running t-birds at 2.1v, well outside of what I would think they were engineered for.