# Z490 fast ram experiences



## fusseli (Nov 5, 2020)

Built my 10700k with a Gigabyte Aorus Ultra mobo and T-Force DDR4-4500 CL18 1.45V because it was crazy fast and mobo supports it.

Ram works flawless loading XMP and cpu benchmark scores show a difference. My frustration is that I cannot seem to get a stable overclock, of any kind, with the 10700k at the same time. I will get BSOD for memory error.

I am considering going back to a DDR4-3200 CL14 1.35V since it's almost as fast and a much closer to nominal ram speed for the 10 series of 2933/3000 MHz.

Any suggestions?


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## mrthanhnguyen (Nov 5, 2020)

What is your IO SA voltage?


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## fusseli (Nov 5, 2020)

mrthanhnguyen said:


> What is your IO SA voltage?



Right now they are on Auto:
VCCIO 1.199V
VCCSA 1.332V

also, cpu-z for 5.1 all core on either ram FWIW:








						Intel Core i7 10700K @ 5100 MHz - CPU-Z VALIDATOR
					

[kvll3e] Validated Dump by fusseli (2020-06-02 04:23:04) - MB: Gigabyte Z490 AORUS ULTRA - RAM: 16384 MB




					valid.x86.fr
				











						Intel Core i7 10700K @ 5097.5 MHz - CPU-Z VALIDATOR
					

[5xzrt5] Validated Dump by DESKTOP-UC6H09I (2020-11-05 06:25:06) - MB: Gigabyte Z490 AORUS ULTRA - RAM: 16384 MB




					valid.x86.fr


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## mrthanhnguyen (Nov 5, 2020)

Cpu is at 100c? Try 1.25v for both IO SA. Reduce your cpu clock to 5ghz.


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## fusseli (Nov 6, 2020)

I can run 24/7 stress test in Intel XTU on all cores at 5.1, it will oscillate 80 to 100C and throttle. If I bump to 5.0 it does the same and hovers 70-80 C.

Do you think thermal throttling is effecting the 4500 MHz ram stability?


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## mrthanhnguyen (Nov 6, 2020)

Maybe your cpu imc cant handle at that speed. Did u run hci or tm5 to test the ram? Put a fan on those ram sticks. Some ram is sensitive to temp.


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## fusseli (Nov 6, 2020)

I changed IO and SA from auto to "normal" and that put them at 1.2V and 1.08V. Seems cooler now.

It was not stable turning down IO and SA votlages. I swapped the 4500 CL18 back in and notice "auto" has them at 1.386V and 1.428V vs. what they were before with the 3200 CL14.

I think I will just try 2-core 5.1 and all-core 5.0 for a while. Not sure why I get the massive heat spike going to 5.1 all-core. Oddly enough this is my best cpu-z score yet running this way: https://valid.x86.fr/38c4xk


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## fusseli (Jan 17, 2021)

The instability is just too terrible with this 4500 MHz CL18 ram kit. I cannot run stable while gaming even at 100% stock with no tweaks beyond enabling XMP. FWIW this ram kit is not on the QVL for the Z490 Aorus Ultra.

I am switching to a 3600 MHZ CL14 ram kit that is on the QVL. This is theoretically a scosche faster than the 4500/18 and hopefully runs much more stable. with the 3600 IO and SA voltages are at 1.243 and 1.332 on "Auto"


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## cst1992 (Jan 17, 2021)

CPU hitting 80-100C is a problem.
Could you put CoreTemp or RealTemp shots for when it hits that temperature? Maybe an issue with the cooling.


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## fusseli (Jan 17, 2021)

I think the temperatures were related to the IO and SA voltages being set very excessively high automatically due to trying to run ram at 4500 MHz


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## Night (Jan 17, 2021)

CPU overclocks can reduce overclocked RAM stability. I'd remove the CPU overclock and check the stability then in case you overclocked the CPU.


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## fusseli (Jan 17, 2021)

Night said:


> CPU overclocks can reduce overclocked RAM stability. I'd remove the CPU overclock and check the stability then in case you overclocked the CPU.


Yeah I removed the CPU overclock and found the system wasn't stable all stock with nothing but XMP turned on. No bueno


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## nguyen (Jan 17, 2021)

Reduce the Ring Ratio to 300mhz less than CPU core clocks or back to default 43, overclocking the ring ratio can make the CPU run very hot and also affect stability.


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## fusseli (Jan 17, 2021)

nguyen said:


> Reduce the Ring Ratio to 300mhz less than CPU core clocks or back to default 43, overclocking the ring ratio can make the CPU run very hot and also affect stability.



Thanks for the suggestion. I have not ever overclocked or changed the ring ratio.

I am getting okay results so far with the 3600/14 ram. It is actually beating the 4500/18 in Passmark and Userbenchmark and a few others. Fingers crossed for stability so I get get back to OC on my 10700k!


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## phanbuey (Jan 17, 2021)

4500Mhz is at the bleeding edge of the IMC - basically anything over 4200 is hard to get stable from what ive seen, anything below that seems really easy.  Try putting your kit to 4100 or 4133 and tighten timings.


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## Arctucas (Jan 17, 2021)

Your first two CPU-Z screenshots show 1.56 VCore, and the validation link you later posted shows 1.45 VCore. There is the cause of your heat issue.

Does that processor need that VCore?


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## fusseli (Jan 17, 2021)

Arctucas said:


> Your first two CPU-Z screenshots show 1.56 VCore, and the validation link you later posted shows 1.45 VCore. There is the cause of your heat issue.
> 
> Does that processor need that VCore?



That is due to Aorus Ultra doing "auto" voltages and attempting 5.0 all core turbo. That plus the VCCIO and VCCSA on "auto" being really high are what were causing my issues.


Latest --








						Intel Core i7 10700K @ 4997.55 MHz - CPU-Z VALIDATOR
					

[l3reau] Validated Dump by Anonymous (2021-01-17 18:32:41) - MB: Gigabyte Z490 AORUS ULTRA - RAM: 16384 MB




					valid.x86.fr
				








						PassMark Software - Display Baseline ID# 			1356649
					






					www.passmark.com


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## phanbuey (Jan 17, 2021)

Still very high.  You really shouldn't need more than about 1.32-1.35 vcore for 5.0 and 1.4 for 5.1... Most samples are 5.1 stable around 1.36 v.

You may have gotten very unlucky with yout sample, but those volts are way way higher than what are typically used.


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## Tatty_One (Jan 17, 2021)

If my memory (no pun intended) serves me correctly, the max recommended IO and SA voltages for 24/7 use is 1.25v, I always set manually.  If I might suggest try your 4500mhz ram with manual settings exactly the same as XMP for the main timings, leave the rest on auto, re-boot and see how they play then, my ram (in my specs) happily run at 4500mhz but even at their stock speeds of 4133mhz they are not stable with a CPU overclock when using XMP, as soon as I manually input the timings and voltage (I increased the voltage very slightly) they were fine even with tightened timings and have been for several months now.


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## fusseli (Jan 17, 2021)

Tatty_One said:


> If my memory (no pun intended) serves me correctly, the max recommended IO and SA voltages for 24/7 use is 1.25v, I always set manually.  If I might suggest try your 4500mhz ram with manual settings exactly the same as XMP for the main timings, leave the rest on auto, re-boot and see how they play then, my ram (in my specs) happily run at 4500mhz but even at their stock speeds of 4133mhz they are not stable with a CPU overclock when using XMP, as soon as I manually input the timings and voltage (I increased the voltage very slightly) they were fine even with tightened timings and have been for several months now.





phanbuey said:


> Still very high.  You really shouldn't need more than about 1.32-1.35 vcore for 5.0 and 1.4 for 5.1... Most samples are 5.1 stable around 1.36 v.
> 
> You may have gotten very unlucky with yout sample, but those volts are way way higher than what are typically used.



OK I will try and lower vcore and cap the IO and SA.

I just ran a couple hours of CPU stress on Intel XTU and seem to be thermally stable, floating between 60-80 C and not exceeding 80 C. System seems stable now too. Running ram at 1.45v 3600/14.


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## ThrashZone (Jan 17, 2021)

fusseli said:


> OK I will try and lower vcore and cap the IO and SA.
> 
> I just ran a couple hours of CPU stress on Intel XTU and seem to be thermally stable, floating between 60-80 C and not exceeding 80 C. System seems stable now too. Running ram at 1.45v 3600/14.


Hi,
Yeah that's crazy 3600c14 1.45v lol 
My 3600c16 only needs 1.35v 

How hot do your dimms get with 1.45v heck I don't even need that much voltage for 4000c16 1.43v is about it.


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## fusseli (Jan 17, 2021)

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> Yeah that's crazy 3600c14 1.45v lol
> My 3600c16 only needs 1.35v
> 
> How hot do your dimms get with 1.45v heck I don't even need that much voltage for 4000c16 1.43v is about it.



That's an XMP profile on the XPG D60G: 3600 14-15-15 1.45v, not gonna mess with it.


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## ThrashZone (Jan 17, 2021)

fusseli said:


> That's an XMP profile on the XPG D60G: 3600 14-15-15 1.45v, not gonna mess with it.


Hi,
Didn't ask you too 
Just asked how hot do the dimms get at 1.45v


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## Arctucas (Jan 17, 2021)

fusseli said:


> That is due to Aorus Ultra doing "auto" voltages and attempting 5.0 all core turbo. That plus the VCCIO and VCCSA on "auto" being really high are what were causing my issues.
> 
> 
> Latest --
> ...



AUTO tends to overvolt, sometimes a lot.

1.3 VCore would be a good starting point, and adjust up/down from there.


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## fusseli (Jan 17, 2021)

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> Didn't ask you too
> Just asked how hot do the dimms get at 1.45v



I have a temp probe in between the DRAM and it is saying 27 C. So warm but not hot.



Arctucas said:


> AUTO tends to overvolt, sometimes a lot.
> 
> 1.3 VCore would be a good starting point, and adjust up/down from there.



No doubt about that. As we can see here Auto is doing crazy high voltages for me here, not a fan. Think I'm going to sell the 4500/18 ram.


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## Arctucas (Jan 17, 2021)

fusseli said:


> <SNIP>
> 
> 
> 
> No doubt about that. As we can see here Auto is doing crazy high voltages for me here, not a fan. Think I'm going to sell the 4500/18 ram.



Does the motherboard have Adaptive VCore?


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## fusseli (Jan 17, 2021)

Arctucas said:


> Does the motherboard have Adaptive VCore?



Yes. It has auto, where it scales vcore for intel speedstep at lower clocks, and it has adaptive.

I am doing much better on the CPU temps now. Just ran Intel XTU a couple hours again and it hovered around ~65 C the whole time at 5.0 all-core! Huge improvement.

I am still at 1.25V IO and SA with vcore at 1.35v


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## Arctucas (Jan 17, 2021)

Good to hear.

Personally, I would tweak the VCore for lowest stable voltage under stress test. Lower .01V and test. Repeat until instability, then set at lowest stable VCore (Adaptive). Once you get that dialed in, then you can start working on LLC settings.

XTU is OK, but if it can pass 30 rounds of LinX 0.9 at 35000 problem size with consistent residuals, I would consider that stable.

Then you can start dialing in RAM timings, with the appropriate testing for stability, of course.


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## Tatty_One (Jan 18, 2021)

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> Yeah that's crazy 3600c14 1.45v lol
> My 3600c16 only needs 1.35v
> 
> How hot do your dimms get with 1.45v heck I don't even need that much voltage for 4000c16 1.43v is about it.





fusseli said:


> I have a temp probe in between the DRAM and it is saying 27 C. So warm but not hot.
> 
> 
> 
> *No doubt about that. As we can see here Auto is doing crazy high voltages for me here, not a fan. Think I'm going to sell the 4500/18 ram*.


Did you try not using XMP but manually inputting the identical timings?


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## ThrashZone (Jan 18, 2021)

Tatty_One said:


> Did you try not using XMP but manually inputting the identical timings?


Hi,
I personally never use xmp profiles.
4000mhz is 16-17-16-36 plus some other tuning.

I have tried xmp profile 2 and maximus tweak mode 1 some that asus created to tweak secondaries it was okay.


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## Tatty_One (Jan 18, 2021)

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> I personally never use xmp profiles.
> 4000mhz is 16-17-16-36 plus some other tuning.
> 
> I have tried xmp profile 2 and maximus tweak mode 1 some that asus created to tweak secondaries it was okay.


Nor do I, that's why I suggested it, sometimes you can just get a below par IMC and using XMP is just another form of overclocking that adds stress to it, plus I always try to get more out of my memory than stock values.


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## ThrashZone (Jan 18, 2021)

Tatty_One said:


> Nor do I, that's why I suggested it, sometimes you can just get a below par IMC and using XMP is just another form of overclocking that adds stress to it, plus I always try to get more out of my memory than stock values.


Hi,
Deal with the prior xmp settings was command rate 1N would not work without the xmp 2 and tweak 1 enabled 
Asus has really got wild on memory oc on z490 and core oc too.


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## fusseli (Jan 18, 2021)

Yeah I have tried manually entering the XMP values. That is one of my gripes with the Aorus Ultra is that it is not self-ware of its own settings, i.e. when XMP is applied it does not change the displayed DRAM voltage in bios, but booting the system shows that applying XMP did in fact change DRAM voltage to what it's supposed to be. It casts doubt on what the Aorus Ultra bios is or isn't doing to itself.

Manual vcore, vccio, vccsa seems to have solved my temperature problems on the 10700k and 3600/16 seems to have fixed the stability issue of 4500/18. Benchmarks are coming in slightly higher too, but unsure if that's because there was some other config issue with the 4500/18 attempt.


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## ThrashZone (Jan 18, 2021)

Hi,
You'd normally start after clearing cmos and enter all timings and dimm.... voltages manually not just timings.


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## Tatty_One (Jan 18, 2021)

And often, if XMP was unstable and therefore it's timings were manually input with XMP off a 0.2V voltage increase, in the OP's case to 1.47 might do the job.


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## fusseli (Jan 19, 2021)

I reset cmos about ten times trying to get 4500/18 and XMP timings to run stable.

I also just had the displeasure of updating to F20a bios, which failed and bricked the mobo upon restart, but was able to recover by a re-flash using Qflash+


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## ThrashZone (Jan 20, 2021)

Hi,
Cripes didn't know bios flash was complicated on giga board good recovery though.


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## fusseli (Jan 21, 2021)

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> Cripes didn't know bios flash was complicated on giga board good recovery though.



This is the first bios flash, from windows, that has ever bricked a mobo, in 10+ years of updating bios through windows apps. I've been flashing bios since it was done via floppy disk and we overlocked the multiplier with DIP switches on the mobo LOL


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## phanbuey (Jan 21, 2021)

got my DDR4 3200 CL14 kit up to 4400 C19 stable - z490 is a beast, the 10 series chips IMC is really crazy:




It does love to eat SA and IO voltages though - stability scaling all the way up to 1.44v SA and 1.38 IO on Auto settings from mobo.... going to have to work on getting those down.


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## Tatty_One (Jan 21, 2021)

Mine will do 4400mhz @ cl18-18-18-36 but they need 1.47v to achieve that which I am not willing to force on them for 24/7, I ran them for most of the time at 4000mhz cl15-16-16-32 on 1.45 but have now reverted to 4133mhz for 24/7 on 17-17-17-34 @1.43v...…………. not bad for an el cheapo kit really.


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## fusseli (Jan 23, 2021)

I'm definitely all better now! All-core 5.0 is now 24/7 stable. I am trying 5.1 all-core with 5.3 2-core now. The voltage overrides is key. Can't trust this Gigabyte Aorus Ultra.









						Intel Core i7 10700K @ 5098.78 MHz - CPU-Z VALIDATOR
					

[mcf0ye] Validated Dump by Anonymous (2021-01-23 23:58:17) - MB: Gigabyte Z490 AORUS ULTRA - RAM: 16384 MB




					valid.x86.fr
				





x


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## Martin von R (Apr 8, 2021)

10600K@4900  MSI MAG Z490 TOMAHAWK
mem 
3600MHz cl 17  1.35v 4x8GB  @4100cl 20 v 1.38v  //  IO 1.26v SA 1,27v  
cheap  HyperX Fury RGB  3600MHZ cl17  
when I lower cl, my test gets worse, but letting them run auto, all my tests go to the good side  

do not think about my vcore, it is the cpu uses at 5GHZ, just put the cpu down a bit when I had to test my mem


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## fusseli (May 8, 2021)

5.1 all-core is stable, 5.3 2C (trying 5.3 4C now)
vcore 1.35v
io, sa 1.25v


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## GorbazTheDragon (May 14, 2021)

You'll really want more SA voltage for the memory... 1.35-1.4v and you should be off to the races with 1T command rate at those speeds.


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## mobiuus (May 14, 2021)

Put ur cpu ratio at 8...then overclock mem and if u succeed bring cpu ratio back to what u want


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## GorbazTheDragon (May 14, 2021)

mobiuus said:


> Put ur cpu ratio at 8...then overclock mem and if u succeed bring cpu ratio back to what u want


Yeah good luck stress testing your RAM with the CPU running at 800MHz


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## Martin von R (Feb 15, 2022)

littel updat whit G.skill 4000 cl 17-17-17-37 1.35v at 4300MHZ cl 16-16-16-35 1.5v iv 1.27v sa 1.35v  no xmp ,tweak sub timing
24/7 use


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## GorbazTheDragon (Feb 15, 2022)

Looks pretty normal, 2T makes it pretty easy to hit mid 4000s, the challenge with SR kits is really getting the 1T speeds up. Requires a good board.


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