Overclocking RAM

I'm running 32G of Corsair XMS3 DDR3 at 1600MHz. (stock). I've read that this ram is easy and very forgiving/compatible with overclocking. My question, how would one go about overclocking it. Obviously by bios, but what voltages/currents/etc should I be adjusting and by what increments? Also, ran memtest86 yesterday several times over and discovered one stick of 8G was bad, so I'll be doing an RMA on that. Is there anyone that can help advise me one way or the other on the overclocking ability of this particular RAM set?

Pcgamer1991 Welcome to the forum, When Overclocking RAM having good sticks that will Oc helps but it is also dependent on the system components. Please list them all motherboard and cpu specifically. Additionally, when running 32g of ram it can be tougher to overclock, because it puts more stress on the Cpu IMC, then say 4g will. It will be difficult for anyone to tell you exactly what timings and speed you can run on your components but again knowing them will help. You will also want to have your OS backed up and know how to do a clear CMOS because overclocking RAM can lead to a frozen system or a borked OS. You can also download Cpu-Z and post screen shots of the memory and spd tabs using the in forum attachment tool.

Not to down you or anything, but RAM overclocking is just not worth it in most cases.

Maybe just tighten your timings and continue running then at stock clocks. (But with lower timings)

To best help, a list of system specs and some screen shots of full load temps so we can help OC the system a little.

Then, we make Ram hump hard.

Silver_Pharaoh said:

Not to down you or anything, but RAM overclocking is just not worth it in most cases.

Maybe just tighten your timings and continue running then at stock clocks. (But with lower timings)

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I still consider that overclocking with increasing the data speed to read and write in the same time frame.

wingman99 said:

I still consider that overclocking with increasing the data speed to read and write in the same time frame.

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That is true.

I don't game hard, so I do not know if that would help in gaming, which is why I said it doesn't usually help

I was under the impression that the largest difference is around the 1600 - 1866 Mhz speed mark, and only bench will notice a large performance boost.

It IS overclocking, however the gains in most activities there are little to no increases in performance, especially in gaming. Ram bandwidth/speed is not the bottleneck on most systems.

That said, in order to help we would need to see your system specs and we can help from there. 32GB is A LOT of ram... what do you do with it? You may be one of the (rare) cases that speeding up the ram actually helps.

Faster is better ......

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7364/memory-scaling-on-haswell



"Hey mom we need more Calgon"

You may want to look at that article more closely... iGPU, absolutely. Discrete GPU, nearly none. There is some response if you winrar or use .264 stuff, or multi(3)-GPU. If you don't do that stuff, its not even worth it...1-2% at best from 1333 to 2400. He is also starting at 1600Mhz as well so the difference is actually less. It sure won't hurt anything to overclock (except time to do it)... but it won't help much unless he is doing the things listed.


"Calgon take me away!"

Witchdoctor said:

Faster is better ......

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7364/memory-scaling-on-haswell



"Hey mom we need more Calgon"

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Frequency vs timings.. if you have high speed ram but terrible timings, the you would be better off with 1600Mhz with 9-9-9-24, vs 2133 @ 13-13-15-18
the 2133 will be slower than the 1600Mhz...

I'm not a big fan of OCing RAM because it starts to get unstable. Buy the fastest you can afford with the best timings..

All depends from memory controller. In most cases most important is balance between clock and timings.
Optimal for new platforms is 1866/2133 and medium timings like 9-9-9/9-10-9 for 1866 and 9-11-11/10-11-11 for 2133.
Using 1600 memory on something like Intel Haswell you are limiting memory controller's max bandwidth and it's often visible. Still in most programs you won't see big difference as new CPUs have pretty large and fast cache. Games base mainly on GPU speed so won't be really affected by memory speed ( if you won't use IGP ) or even CPU speed. In most games you won't see any special difference switching from 4GHz i7 to 3.5GHz i3 ... hard to believe but I haven't seen any difference in 9/10 titles ( not looking at pure FPS ).

There are no DDR3 CL13. Lowest you can find have CL11-13-13. Actually more matters if you have single/double modules than memory timings or even clock. 2133 CL9 double sided memory is usually as fast as 2600 CL11 single sided. All 8GB modules are double sided so picking 32GB kit you don't have to worry about it.

I wish that once explained would stay in minds for longer but I see that we have to repeat the same over and over again and try to prove the same facts in each thread.

Maybe I find some more time one day and make tests on various density and speed memory in games and some other programs. It can be hard as I'm usually or too busy, tired or simply too lazy.

There is CL 13... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...Id=1&Description=DDR3&name=13&Order=BESTMATCH

ha! and I thought I won't see that in anything except SODIMM and DDR4 ... really, I saw CL13 IC in some manufacturers specification but I haven't seen modules on the market in mass sales ... I didn't even expect that RAM like this will appear on the retail market.

EarthDog said:

"Calgon take me away!"

Click to expand...

"Ancient Chinese's Secret"

I agree, it is very little.

Faster is better, the debate is it worth marginal gains, I typically only buy fast memory for benching so I have no personal base line for a fair comparison. So can only offer up what I have read.