Ram Overclock - are non-standard RAM speeds ok after FSB increase and others

[gingerjesus]

Hi everyone - I'm having fun with first time overclocking and have got a pretty stable setup going, but I have some questions regarding RAM that I have assumptions on based on a lot of forum research but have yet to find definitive answers on.

Setup : Motherboard Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 ; CPU FX-6300 ; Ram Kingston Hyper X Fury 1600 4GB x2
The Motherboard ram specs are the standard 1333,1600,1866 etc.

Questions :

1 - I've increased FSB to 241 which, in BIOS, is giving me selectable RAM MHZ settings of 1,284, 1606 (current setting) and 1928 and so on.

The first question is - are these odd clock speeds ok ? So far I haven’t noticed any instability at 1606 (although there was at 1928) after some quick Prime tests and 3 hours of Witcher 3 at Ultra, but not sure if I’m hampering the system in any way.

Because if these random clock speeds are ok, then ….

2 – What’s with the 1333,1600 standard speeds ? Are they just for easy marketability ? Why would a motherboard not just say e.g. “compatible up to 1900 Mhz”

3 - CPU-Z shows the DRAM frequency at 806Mhz which is reasonably correct for 1606, but Windows (10) Task Manager has the RAM speed at 1333Mhz on the Performance tab. I assume this is ok and I can ignore Task Manager as it’s just an indicator based on standard speeds and not a true speed (Note if I drop the FSB back to 200 then this setting in bios puts the Ram speed at 1333).

4 – CAS Latencies and timings – are you able to just trial adjust these willy nilly ? The Hyper X is rated at 10,10,10,13 at 800Mhz and 9,9,9,27 at 720mhz. For the sake of argument, am I able just to keep the speed at 800Mhz but try changing the timings to 8,8,8,25 or am I completely missing something here ?

Cheers ,

GJ

 

[caddi daddi]

the ram bus is adjusted by the fsb, just as the cpu and n/b are.
#1, yea, ram speed is ram speed 2133 or 2136, all are good.
#2, nobody needs over 1600 ram, except benchmarking, for that matter 1066 is plenty, they just assure you 1600 ram will work.
#3 screw task manager, microsoft has no idea what they are doing, use cpu-z.
#4, adjusting all those things are never done willy-nilly, start that and you will know how to reimage your os real quick.
it's done a little at a time, memory benching will bork an os faster than you can **** off your wife.

 

[caddi daddi]

let me correct #2.
only benchers and people using an onboard gpu will ever be helped by ram speed and timings.

 

[gingerjesus]

Hey, cheers for the reply The only reason I'm really "overclocking" the RAM is a result of the FSB increase. I'm not really trying to overclock the speed at all. In reality I'd be happy with 1600 but the FSB multiplier makes that impossible. If the weird ram speeds are ok, then I'm good to go.

With the CAS timings - I don't really plan on just jumping in on random numbers, that was just to illustrate the question . The question was more around do we have to follow the manufacturers timings or can we slooowly adjust one number at a time regardless of what the manufacture specs say? Every forum I read says "look at the stickers on the side and adjust to them". Well, I want to ignore all that and just try to see what happens when I start using my own - eg. Can I get everything down to 9 at 800 MHZ even though manufacturer has them at 10 for 800MHZ.

 

[gingerjesus]

Cheers for the replies . Only reason I'm "overclocking" ram is the FSB increase, I'm not really trying to push these past whatever the equivalent of 1600 is.

With the CAS adjustments, I was only really using that as an example. The real question is do I have to follow manufacturers timings at all ? Or can I just go in an change it, slowly and one at a time, to whatever I want ?

Are they locked into whatever the manufacturers specs are, or even I saw in one forum someone said the motherboard uses the manufacturers specs anyway so overwrites your manual changes. That was only one instance of this so not sure if that's right or not.

I assume the answers to all of these are "yep, go crazy at your own

 

[bartx]

let me correct #2.
only benchers and people using an onboard gpu will ever be helped by ram speed and timings.

I'd not agree. Sometimes there is a 5-10% boost in certain applications like encoding stuff, winrar etc. In games too. Especially when comparing poor memory (1333 CL9/1600 CL10) to at least 2133 CL9.

In your case you may try some memory overclocking, but don't expect much. Those budget kits allow you maybe 1800 CL10 or something like that.

 

[caddi daddi]

a bit back i ran through a lot of games with a lot of ram, 1-5 fps is all I ever saw.
amount of ram helps with some programs and browsers but still not enough to worry with as long as you have 8 gigs.
still nothing in ram worth while.