Can't overclock with 4 sticks of RAM.

[mikeaaronc]

Motherboard: GA-990FXA-UD3 Rev. 3
Cpu: AMD FX 8350
RAM: G. Skill Sniper series 1866 DDR3 (2x4gb) (2x4gb)
GPU: Evga GTX 970

I am sure there are a lot of people on here that have exactly the same build as I do. All of the hardware I have is a top seller on Newegg. Anways, I previously was able to overclock my system to 4.6 ghz which to my understanding was stable, using just 2x4gb sticks of ran. Using xmp profile one it ran fine at 1866. I saw a special on newegg for my exact ram for 39.99 adding another 8 gigs. I put ram in and no post. I have tried overclocking my cpu just using the Blck with no multiplier and it was able to post but froze on certain games constantly. I underclocked my ram to less than 1366mhz and tried many different combinations. Nothing I tried is a stable other than a total reset to bios defaults. Is there anyone out there with my build or experience with it, that can throw some settings at me? I don't want to lose my overclock just to add 8 more gigs of ram.

 

[neieus]

Well you need to remember the more sticks the greater in instability when over clocking. Also when using 4 sticks the memory controller drops to 1600 base speed so if you're trying to run at 1866 still that will need to change. To increase stability you can increase the voltage to the memory controller.

 

[mikeaaronc]

Thank you for the reply neieus. I am not concerned with RAM speed, nearly as much as CPU speed. I have seen plenty of benchmarks running 1600 vs 2166 vs ddr4 ram. The difference is very very minor. Cpu clock on the other hand, especially with my processor is. If I have to down clock my RAM that is okay. I am just wondering how I do this with a stable boot. Like I said before I have down-clocked my ram to under 1600 MHz. I still had problems.

 

[neieus]

Whether it's the memory speed or not the memory controller is sometimes weak on the fx CPU's. Try increasing the voltage to the memory controller to remain stable @1600 and your multiplier.

 

[mikeaaronc]

I increased the DRAM voltage from 1.5 to 1.55 volts. Increased CPU multiplier to 23 (4.6ghz) and disabled all power saving features along with increasing the vcore voltage like before. I was able to boot just fine unlike before and I played Wolfenstein the new order for about an hour with no problems. Is DRAM voltage what you were referring too? So many different terms with each manufacturer.

 

[neieus]

Not the Dram voltage but the voltage to the memory controller it's completely different and it should be under the Advanced Voltage Settings NB Core. The default is 1.1 but you're safe at 1.2 on air.

 

[mikeaaronc]

Thank you. Big difference in fps @4.6 ghz vs 4.2 in Wolfenstein. Running at 1600 mhz. Fine for me but is it possible to get to 1866 with 4 dram sticks on this memory controller for cpu?

 

[neieus]

Only if you overclock the bus at this point. Also as you previously mentioned the memory speed doesn't really provide much for a speed improvement however that's not entirely accurate. Take a look at this post on overclockers.net that shows how a multiplier with an increased bus speed provides more performance than just using the multiplier alone.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1140459/bulldozer-overclocking-guide-performance-scaling-charts-max-ocs-ln2-results-coming

I also wanted to add that if you still find any instability increase the voltage to the CPU NB VID. You can safely go up to 1.35v on air but I have found that 1.3v was enough.

 

[mikeaaronc]

Well I was referring to gaming benchmarks, I had looked at plenty of them from reliable sources. It showed not much of an fps difference in test systems. Anyways I will try your suggestion and use a combination of bus speed and multiplier for the heck of it.