overclock corsair vengeance 1600 4x4gb

[peugot]

so, i am curious what they can do(with my system)? i have read that a guy got them to 2133 with great timings with only 1.60 v?? not sure if thats fake but what can i really expect from these? volt ,timing and speed of course? =)

 

[givmedew]

Just like a CPU each set is different... Did you buy these in a kit of 4 or 2 kits of 2? If you bought it as 2 kits of 2 you may want to return them. I don't see why you wouldn't have any trouble hitting 1866 since I believe that the ones that are sold as 1866 are 1600 anyways. In fact I am almost certain of that since when I went to do an RMA on my vengeance ram the 1866 model number didn't even exist just a 1600 for the kit I have.

Just make sure you are not overclocking anything else while you try to OC these.

In fact I would slightly underclock everything as you try to find the OC for these.

Also there is an RAM timing OC guide that I used that helped me OC the ram on my 920 and my 2500k

I would search for it.

 

[peugot]

Just like a CPU each set is different... Did you buy these in a kit of 4 or 2 kits of 2? If you bought it as 2 kits of 2 you may want to return them. I don't see why you wouldn't have any trouble hitting 1866 since I believe that the ones that are sold as 1866 are 1600 anyways. In fact I am almost certain of that since when I went to do an RMA on my vengeance ram the 1866 model number didn't even exist just a 1600 for the kit I have.

Just make sure you are not overclocking anything else while you try to OC these.

In fact I would slightly underclock everything as you try to find the OC for these.

Also there is an RAM timing OC guide that I used that helped me OC the ram on my 920 and my 2500k

I would search for it.

tnx for a great reply! and for your question, i got it in a kit of 4 =) so, what timings " speed would be optimal for a home user in general?

 

[givmedew]

Well I am no pro and I just asked these questions myself not too long ago... But what you should do is download a program that benchmarks your memory. I use Maxmemm2 or aida64 to bench my memory.

Something you should know is that you may be able to get similar speeds at 1600 and tighter timings than at 1866 and looser timings. I would try everything you can think of.

One thing also though is you should download memtest iso and run that to test your memory stability you can use a cd iso or there is a thumb drive version.

I would use that over prime95 when you are just starting out. Then once you have your highest speed and tightest timings then run prime95.

What I would do is try something like 7-8-8-23 @ 1600MHz and 1.65v and run the memtest if it is stable then try 7-8-7-22 then 7-7-7-21 then 6-7-7-20 once your no longer stable I would boot up at the best stable timings and then benchmark it. Then I would go back up the memory speed to 1866 and try to find the tightest stable timings and then benchmark it. Then try 2100MHz find the most stable timings and benchmark it.

All the while making sure NOTHING else on the computer is over clocked. On my computer I decided to go 1600MHz with tighter timings over higher speed and looser timings. This allowed me to OC the CPU further.

Once you have the speed you want and are stable start backing the voltage on the ram down until it becomes unstable and then bring it back up.

You may even want to start at 1.7v it will allow you to find your max speeds faster... Then just reduce it until it become unstable and up it back a lil.

 

[Knufire]

tnx for a great reply! and for your question, i got it in a kit of 4 =) so, what timings " speed would be optimal for a home user in general?

There's no real world performance benefit for overclocking memory. It's more of a "because you can" sorta thing.

In synthetic benchmarks like the benching team uses, it can make a world of difference though.

 

[peugot]

There's no real world performance benefit for overclocking memory. It's more of a "because you can" sorta thing.

In synthetic benchmarks like the benching team uses, it can make a world of difference though.

because you can? :O why would so many ppl do it if there are no performance in it? :s im asking because i dont know.. even motherboard manufacturers are advertising like "xmp profile 1600 mhz" things, why do they do it for then?

 

[Knufire]

XMP is something different. By default, all 1155 boards will set memory to 1600MHz. Intel XMP profiles is just a quick/easy way to get your memory running at it's rated speed and timings.

But simply put, marketing sells. For example, look at the ASUS ROG series of boards (the red and black boards). How many people do you think buy the board believing the "best gaming motherboard" marketing that ASUS publishes versus the people who buy the board for the purpose it was designed for (extreme overclocking on dry ice or liquid nitrogen).

For the effect of memory scailing on performance, read here. It's pretty much the same for all CPUs (other than the AMD APUs, as they use RAM for video memory so higher speed ram = good difference in graphics power): http://www.anandtech.com/show/4503/sandy-bridge-memory-scaling-choosing-the-best-ddr3

It's only when you get down to DDR3-1333 that you see a minor performance penalty. The sweet spot appears to be at DDR3-1600, where you will see a minor performance increase over DDR3-1333 with only a slight increase in cost. The performance increase gained by going up to DDR3-1866 or DDR3-2133 isn't nearly as pronounced.

 

[dtrunk]

Well I am no pro and I just asked these questions myself not too long ago... But what you should do is download a program that benchmarks your memory. I use Maxmemm2 or aida64 to bench my memory.

Something you should know is that you may be able to get similar speeds at 1600 and tighter timings than at 1866 and looser timings. I would try everything you can think of.

One thing also though is you should download memtest iso and run that to test your memory stability you can use a cd iso or there is a thumb drive version.

I would use that over prime95 when you are just starting out. Then once you have your highest speed and tightest timings then run prime95.

What I would do is try something like 7-8-8-23 @ 1600MHz and 1.65v and run the memtest if it is stable then try 7-8-7-22 then 7-7-7-21 then 6-7-7-20 once your no longer stable I would boot up at the best stable timings and then benchmark it. Then I would go back up the memory speed to 1866 and try to find the tightest stable timings and then benchmark it. Then try 2100MHz find the most stable timings and benchmark it.

All the while making sure NOTHING else on the computer is over clocked. On my computer I decided to go 1600MHz with tighter timings over higher speed and looser timings. This allowed me to OC the CPU further.

Once you have the speed you want and are stable start backing the voltage on the ram down until it becomes unstable and then bring it back up.

You may even want to start at 1.7v it will allow you to find your max speeds faster... Then just reduce it until it become unstable and up it back a lil.

great thoughts and pretty much what i intend to do; great idea on trying to tighten the timing at 1600. I too have the 4x4gb corsair vengeance memory kit; been doing some reading on this subject and waiting to do this. it looks like most people can get it to 1866 with just a voltage increase to 1.6v and lossening the timing +1 10-10-10-24; some ohave fine tuned that to 9-10-9 or 10-10-9 (odd) or similar; but may have needed a volts bump to 1.65v or 1.7v

some ??s

should i do each stick individually, finding it's max speed/timing settings, and then maybe run the best two sticks; 8gb should be enough ram right??

how do the timing numbers play in to one another, if I lower one how does it affect the other? or is it really as simple as changing them -/+ 1 and seeing the affect?

max volts? 1.7v?

 

[givmedew]

I am no pro on the topic I just learned recently. One thing I know for sure is that unless you have a x79 chipset (quad channel ram) you will not be able to hit as high of a speed with 4 dimms as you would with just 2. Most the motherboard manufactures even say something to this affect like either they can hit such and such a speed but not as high if 4 dimms are installed. So if you really wanted to you could check each stick individually and this would technically be like binning. If you do find that some of the sticks are better than others then use the best ones. As far as how much memory you need. 4 is enough 8 is plenty unless there is a specific application that you know of that needs more. For example on my Mac I need more ram because I run virtual machines on it and I end up assigning 3gb of ram to each virtual machine and the mac itself needs that much to run smooth. But for games and other things 8 will do it.

As far as the timings you should look at the ram overclocking guide. Do a google for that but what I can say is you change them 1 at a time so if your at 9-10-9 try 8-10-9 then 8-9-9 then 8-9-8 then 7-9-8. Once it crashes go back the previous setting and try the next number so if 8-9-8 is solid but 7-9-8 crashes try 8-8-8 if that crashes then try 8-9-7 and if that crashes you know that 8-9-8 is the best you can do at that voltage and frequency. Then benchmark the speed and if it was at 1600MHz go find the best settings at 1866 and benchmark it and see if it was a major increase. If you find you can OC your processor further on 1600 than 1866 then obviously 1600 is the speed you wanna stay with and then find its best timings.

Something you may notice is that 1600 on its best timings vs 1866 on its best may be a very small difference in speed but may be a huge difference in stability for other things.

You have to find that perfect balance but you also need to make sure you only overclock one part of your system at a time until you have found all of your maximums for each component then try to get them all to run at those speeds which may or may not be possible... sacrifice at one component may be necessary.

As far as max voltage what chip and chipset are you running? cpuworld and google will give you your max voltage quickly and you can usually go a tad bit higher. I would say 1.7 should be fine but if you wanna play it safe go for 1.65. Remember you can damage the processor itself from running to high of a voltage.

some ??s

should i do each stick individually, finding it's max speed/timing settings, and then maybe run the best two sticks; 8gb should be enough ram right??

how do the timing numbers play in to one another, if I lower one how does it affect the other? or is it really as simple as changing them -/+ 1 and seeing the affect?

max volts? 1.7v?