# Overclocking RAM on Sabertooth X99



## RejZoR (Mar 15, 2016)

Any advice on how to efficiently overclock RAM on Sabertooth X99 ?

The thing is, I have HyperX Fury 2400MHz and even though it's fast enough, I just can't stand something running at stock. But I've never really overclocked RAM much, at least not beyond specs since on X58, 1600MHz was maximum anyway when it was in sync with BCLK of 200MHz. But now I'm sailing into uncharted waters...

I've fiddled with it before and what I hate with RAM the most is that it's a backstabbing bastard. It can work fine for hours and then it just snaps for "no reason", crashing/BSOD-ing the system.

I've currently disabled DRAM VID, increased DRAM current to 120%, opened up all RAM phases (Extreme) and upped the voltage to 1.35V.

Left timings on AUTO, except I've set it to 1T and at 2800MHz. For now. System boots without problems, but I just freaking know it'll hang at one point. Would prefer to reach at least 3000MHz because I like nice round numbers.
Any tips? Can I ramp up current even further up to 150%, maybe higher voltage even? Any other option that might increase overclockability and stability?


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## EarthDog (Mar 15, 2016)

XMP = stock. He asked how to overclock. 

Anyway, since you have so much ram, you may or may not be able to reach those clocks. You will more than likely have to add some VccSA and VccIO... IF the sticks will even reach there.

I would run P95 Blend or some memtest and see how stable you really are.

ALso, you will be using 125BCLK on that platform when you select the 3K memory multiplier... just be aware of that and adjust the CPU multi lower to compensate.

Please post up screenshots of CPUz.. the memory tab, and spd tab.

EDIT: I also wouldn't bother with overclocking ram either as it yields few gains in most cases.


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## RejZoR (Mar 15, 2016)

Hm, I got memory multiplier on Auto currently, same BCLK which defaults to 100 MHz. 3K multiplier? You mean, when I set DRAM to 3000 MHz ? That would be 5,6 GHz on CPU. Which is a bit high hehe. I don't think my system would boot at those speeds. Then again, I remember it didn't boot at 3000 MHz RAM speed. Hm.

So, to compensate that, I'd have to lower multiplier from 45 to 36 to achieve same CPU clocks.

Highest I could boot my system with was 2933 MHz but it was very unstable. Currently I have 2800MHz and so far it works.




 



NB frequency is dynamic btw, it goes up to 3 GHz...


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## EarthDog (Mar 15, 2016)

What is it with this little cat person deleting his posts? That's worse than irrelevant posts...lol!


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## FreedomEclipse (Mar 15, 2016)

EarthDog said:


> What is it with this little cat person deleting his posts? That's worse than irrelevant posts...lol!



Cuz he doesnt want the rest of TPU to know of his mistakes?


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## little cat (Mar 15, 2016)

FreedomEclipse said:


> Cuz he doesnt want the rest of TPU to know of his mistakes?



Unlikely ! In the hurry one can miss something . So the post gets redundant .


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## RejZoR (Mar 16, 2016)

Ok, so we are at 3GHz now. Set BCLK and strap to 100MHz, set DRAM ratio to 100:100. Changed 1T to 2T to loosen up the timings. 1T was always recommended, not sure how much it helps X99...





3000 MHz is nice. A nice round number  I have no clue how stable it is. Lets hope for the best.


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## EarthDog (Mar 16, 2016)

Run something against it.. P95 Blend... or the Memory test in AIDA64...


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## RejZoR (Mar 16, 2016)

Interesting. At 3000 MHz with very loose timings (2T, 16-18-18-36) it was unstable. Worked fine on desktop but hanged pretty quickly in P95. Then I've decreased to 2800 MHz (1T, 15-15-15-35) and so far, so good. Running test on 30GB out of 32GB for half an hour now while doing other things on desktop (I have experience that doing stuff while testing reveals instability even faster).  2800 MHz with such timings ain't that bad after all. Maybe I get get timings even tighter...


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## Tatty_One (Mar 16, 2016)

little cat said:


> Unlikely ! In the hurry one can miss something . So the post gets redundant .


Then slow down a bit?  Remembering of course that I can see them all anyway


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## RejZoR (Mar 19, 2016)

Yay, I just hit 3000MHz stable at 1.35V.  20 minutes of Prime95 using basically all of the memory. I've left memory timings on Auto which bumped them up a bit, but not by too much. My OCD is now satisfied that I have a nice round number for RAM speed


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## EarthDog (Mar 19, 2016)

And because it bumped the timings up, it's no faster than slower speed with tighter timings...but hey, you hit 3k!


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## RejZoR (Mar 20, 2016)

What I hate the most about RAM is how it's seemingly stable and then out of the blue it locks up. After testing, all looked fine. Played NFS 2016 for like 4 hours. All fine. And then lockup out of nowhere when I wanted to watch a stream on Twitch. Like seriously!? C'mon!?!?!? 

Found out on the internetz upping System Agent voltage a bit might help stability. Lets see...

As for timings, they are bumped up just tiny bit. Do you think 1-2 on timings may negate a 600MHz gain?

EDIT:
Ok, so I've tried it the other way around. Left RAM at 2400MHz at which it's rated and slammed timings down to 12-12-12-25-1T. I have no clue if it' stable yet, but considering it booted without any hiccups, it's a good start.


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## cadaveca (Mar 20, 2016)

DDR4 isn't DDR3. overall timings aren't that important. Bandwidth is not important. What's important is the overall latency (X99 bandwidth exceeds the needs of all software, and true testing requires running multiple instances of a program). You can see this overall latency as a metric in AIDA64's memory test.

Guys that are really pushing the limits are running 1.5V+, and speeds north of 3200 w/ CAS 12 on X99.

Pay more attention to secondary and tertiary timings to get the most optimal overall latency, and you'll have the best performance.

Long-term testing requires many hours of MemtestX86.. in the order of days, really. Unfortunately, with large density ram in multiple sticks in a single system, true stability testing is not a process that takes just hours or minutes to find. Sometimes, lowering timings is a waste of time, and actual raw clockspeed is the ticket to maximum performance and stability.

Spend some time googling DDR4 RTL (focus on splave's guide), and you'll find the true tips and tweaks outside of the general stuff I've posted here. On X99, a lot depends on board in use (you have a good board, but far from the best for high ram clocking), and the CPU, and not so much the ram kit. Most current kits will hit 3200++ MHz with relative ease when you have the right board/CPU combo to go along with it.


EarthDog is pointing you in the right direction, IMHO, so I'll leave it at that, and wish you the best in your ram clocking.


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## RejZoR (Mar 20, 2016)

Sometimes just having low timings or high clock is all you need, even if it doesn't really add any value. Sort of like red brake calipers. Though, those always add 15 HP instantly. 

EDIT:
On a serious note, we are talking like 3 pages of timing settings. Other than just decreasing them all in steps, is there any specific rule there?


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## EarthDog (Mar 20, 2016)

Leave the secondary amd tertiary timings alone. Just mess with the 4 majors and set it to 1T...

...that goes against what Dave says AND he is right. All I am saying is it's not worth it to get that deep into memory overclocking as it doesn't yield much at all.


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## FreedomEclipse (Mar 20, 2016)

little cat said:


> Unlikely ! In the hurry one can miss something . So the post gets redundant .





Tatty_One said:


> Then slow down a bit?  Remembering of course that I can see them all anyway



^ Big Brother is watching


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## RejZoR (Mar 20, 2016)

I guess cadaveca was right to a degree. Quad channel with 2400MHz RAM, that's plenty of bandwidth. It's timing that hasn't changed or has been just increasing lately. And with lower timings, system does seem to be more snappy. Maybe just a random observation, but boot was certainly faster than with stock timings. 12-12-12-20-1T currently. Opposed to stock 15-15-15-35-2T...


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## xkm1948 (Mar 27, 2016)

As a fellow Sabertooth X99 owner I would suggest you stay away from OC your ram. As a matter of fact I recently downclocked my 2800 set to 2666 just to get better stability. The Sabertooth X99 on the newest 2101 BIOS does not OC well on 125 Strap. I was getting BSOD every 3~4 days with just stock XMP settings. Bringing it down to 100Strap solved all my problems.

The Sabertooth X99 prefers 100 over 125 in terms of stability. I would recommend you pick one from either 2666 or 3200. These two can run on 100 Strap just fine. I am going to upgrade my RAM to 128GB in the near future. As it turns out for me higher RAM speed over 2400 really don't give you much of an edge in any real world work load.


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## xkm1948 (Mar 27, 2016)

Also, what cpu voltage are you using for your 4.5GHz OC? Can you pass a 6hr run on ASUS Realbench stress test with 4.5GHz?


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## basco (Mar 27, 2016)

i am running 2133 c12 4x4gb and i would up the uncore to between 3-500 mhz lower then core.
this is what shamino is suggesting for uncore.


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## RejZoR (Mar 27, 2016)

xkm1948 said:


> Also, what cpu voltage are you using for your 4.5GHz OC? Can you pass a 6hr run on ASUS Realbench stress test with 4.5GHz?



I think it's 1.28V or something around there. Should check the BIOS again. I've left RealBench running whole night (around 8 hours).

As for RAM, I've returned back to 2400MHz XMP with 1T timing. This damn thing is just so unpredictable. It can work problem free for entire day of hardcore gaming, video encoding, file compression and then next day all of a sudden for no logical reason system locks up while watching a 480p video on Youtube. Like WHY!? You'd expect it to give up on high load, not when system is under least possible stress... Just too fiddly and I don't think I can be bothered with it anymore.


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## basco (Mar 27, 2016)

i have same prob when overclocked only with rainbow six siege.
running benchmark 2 times is clock watchdog timeout.
everything other i throw at it is stable.

i have a feeling there is something borked or wrong with this mb at different loads


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## xkm1948 (Mar 27, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> I think it's 1.28V or something around there. Should check the BIOS again. I've left RealBench running whole night (around 8 hours).
> 
> As for RAM, I've returned back to 2400MHz XMP with 1T timing. This damn thing is just so unpredictable. It can work problem free for entire day of hardcore gaming, video encoding, file compression and then next day all of a sudden for no logical reason system locks up while watching a 480p video on Youtube. Like WHY!? You'd expect it to give up on high load, not when system is under least possible stress... Just too fiddly and I don't think I can be bothered with it anymore.




I know your frustration. I overclocked mine to 3000. Played Fallout4 for a straight 6hrs for no problem. The next day it wont even boot into Windows. ASUS still has a lot to improve from the 2101 BIOS.

125 Strap is simply unstable to work with at this moment for Sabertooth X99. It is definitely better on R5E or X99E-WS.


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## RejZoR (Mar 27, 2016)

I ran mine at 100 MHz strap fixed.


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## xkm1948 (Mar 27, 2016)

Have you tried playing with VCCSA? Higher doesn't equal better stability. Starting from 1.05V, either go up or down to find your sweet spot. My board will set it to 1.15V by auto, however for my 4.3G OC I found 0.95V to be the most stable. After that upping your cache speed to ~4GHz will also help improve overall memory bandwidth. Use AIDA64 Cache&Memory Benchmark to check your OC results. Bring up uncore speed has proven to be pretty good.

I would highly recommend you try 2666. 100 strap should get you to 2666 fairly easy.  Other than that it could be the quality of memory chip that hinders your OC. Higher speed DDR4 definitely have better binned memory chips. I think Kingston may be better than mine ADATA sticks. You should at least have a stable 2666.


EDIT: The VCCSA on our sabertooth is called system agent. Default is 0.85V. So you need to use the + offset with added volt to get to the value you want.


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## EarthDog (Mar 28, 2016)

Yes... hence the "SA" in VccSA.


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## TheHunter (Mar 28, 2016)

Agree vcssa and dram current % are the most crucial by ram OC.

Ram current 120% auto or extreme, you can also try active freq. 350HZ

Vccsa as other said find sweet spoot, try 0.060 offset and move higher in e.g. 0.010v steps.

What about svid input voltage? Have you Changed that or do you use default or even lower then default?


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## RejZoR (Apr 29, 2016)

Ok, I've managed to bump up CPU cache speed from 3 GHz to 3.8 GHz and decreased timings from 15-15-15-35 2T to 12-12-12-25 1T using 1.3V. It's been like 3 days and system never hanged during load, gaming or ASUS RealBench. Damn, I want to get it down to 10-10-10-20 1T. But it's good already. Maybe I can get it tiny bit lower without causing instability.


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## xkm1948 (Apr 29, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> Ok, I've managed to bump up CPU cache speed from 3 GHz to 3.8 GHz and decreased timings from 15-15-15-35 2T to 12-12-12-25 1T using 1.3V. It's been like 3 days and system never hanged during load, gaming or ASUS RealBench. Damn, I want to get it down to 10-10-10-20 1T. But it's good already. Maybe I can get it tiny bit lower without causing instability.



I assume this is on 100BCLK right?

Anyway, when running realbench stress test make sure you set RAM headroom to 32GB so it can do the full range. I found a pretty good standard for testing memory stability. 4hrs of Realbench max out RAM stress test and 4hrs of full load AIDA64. If your system can pass that total 8hrs your RAM OC should be solid.

Also, try play with tertiary timings, these are very important as well.


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## RejZoR (Apr 29, 2016)

Yeah, I've locked BCLK to 100. From my experience, H.264 test or the heavy multitasking work the best, even very short term. It seems to stress CPU cache a lot and apparently also a lot of shuffling of data from/to RAM. If it can pass 4 heavy multitasking passes, it's already a very good start.


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## RejZoR (May 1, 2016)

Interesting. Looks like CPU cache is more willing for overclock with tighter RAM clocks. 4 GHz CPU cache would be very unstable with stock RAM timings of 15-15-15-35-1T, but with 12-12-12-20-1T, it's working perfectly fine. Done 4 passes of Heavy Multitasking and it went through just fine (producing up to 15fps more than with 3GHz cache for H.264 test!). Gonna test with Crysis 3 now.

EDIT:
Played 2 missions in Crysis 3. All fine so far. This is looking pretty good


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## xkm1948 (May 1, 2016)

Make sure cache voltage never go beyond 1.25V. Cache OC will degrade fast. Mine sit at 4.2GHz for about 4 months then it just refused to be stable any more. Now i have to dial it down to 3.3GHz for everyday use.


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## RejZoR (May 2, 2016)

Thx for the headsup. I'll set it to adaptive and set the limit to 1.25V. I hope it'll be stable.

Why would it degrade so quickly?


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## xkm1948 (May 2, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> Thx for the headsup. I'll set it to adaptive and set the limit to 1.25V. I hope it'll be stable.
> 
> Why would it degrade so quickly?



Adaptative never worked on cache voltage just FYI.

Don't know much about why it degrades, just telling what I experienced as well as other fellow Haswell-E owners' experience.

I am currently set at 3.3GHz  cache with 0.92v cache voltage. Stability over a few hundred mhz now for me.


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## RejZoR (May 2, 2016)

Interesting, mine was already maxing at 1.250V when set on Auto. I've set it to Adaptive now with 0.100V default overvoltage up to max 1.250V under load. You sure it's not working?


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## xkm1948 (May 3, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> Interesting, mine was already maxing at 1.250V when set on Auto. I've set it to Adaptive now with 0.100V default overvoltage up to max 1.250V under load. You sure it's not working?



Do some recording during stress test in AIDA64 and you will see for yourself.

Or you can browse through the Sabertooth X99 owners' thread in overclock.net.

Either way it is broken. Never worked from day 1. Same goes of CPU OC, the adaptive mode for vcore only works if you select 100BCLK


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## RejZoR (May 3, 2016)

Then why the hell they offer this feature if they KNOW it's broken!? That's some AAA grade nonsense. Adaptive VCORE did work for me as it did use correct voltages even with Auto. But I guess it was auto selecting 100 BCLK, which is why it worked.


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## cadaveca (May 3, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> Then why the hell they offer this feature if they KNOW it's broken!? That's some AAA grade nonsense. Adaptive VCORE did work for me as it did use correct voltages even with Auto. But I guess it was auto selecting 100 BCLK, which is why it worked.


Software voltage reporting isn't always accurate.


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## RejZoR (May 3, 2016)

I'm not in the mood for sticking voltmeter at my board...


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## cadaveca (May 3, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> I'm not in the mood for sticking voltmeter at my board...


Wait... wut? And you dare call yourself an overclocker? 

I run my X99 chips @ 4 GHz cache, not dynamic, voltage set manually to 1.05V or less. Technically it should vary between CPUs what's needed, and technically, cache and CPU are the same silicon, should handle the same voltage, but the degradation is real. So you can go after the added memory performance and run the risks, or leave it alone and stay safe. Your call. I'd run the risk and buy the Intel Tuning Plan for easy RMA when it starts to die off.


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## RejZoR (May 3, 2016)

Hm, are you saying the voltage is degrading it or the overclock itself? If it's the voltage only, my CPU seems to be very happy with ridiculously low voltages in general. If I stick with 1.0V, should I be fine long term then?


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## cadaveca (May 3, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> Hm, are you saying the voltage is degrading it or the overclock itself? If it's the voltage only, my CPU seems to be very happy with ridiculously low voltages in general. If I stick with 1.0V, should I be fine long term then?


Its unknown whether it's the clock or the voltage. I'd hazard a guess and say the clock, since that's current demand, but whatevs.

Yeah, 1.0V seems to be OK, but if that works for you long term, only time will tell. We're not sure why your chip was made a 5820 instead of 5930K or 5960X, after all.


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## RejZoR (May 3, 2016)

I know for sure I can't clock it past 4.5GHz no matter the voltage. In worst case scenario, I'll have to run it at stock 3GHz in the end? If that's the case, I can live with that. Or maybe I should leave it at stock now and OC it when it'll lose some steam over time (and age).


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## xkm1948 (May 4, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> Hm, are you saying the voltage is degrading it or the overclock itself? If it's the voltage only, my CPU seems to be very happy with ridiculously low voltages in general. If I stick with 1.0V, should I be fine long term then?



And CPU OC degrades over time as well for Haswell-E. Check the Haswell-E overclock thread and you will find quite a lot of sad stories. Basically most Haswell-E can do pretty good in OC from out of the box until it is about a year old. Then it gradually requires higher and highrt vcore to stay stable at that OC.  However I believe the situation is only applicable when the CPU is being pushed over 4.5GHz. For moderate OC with vcore at or below 1.2V the degradation should be much slower.


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## cadaveca (May 4, 2016)

xkm1948 said:


> And CPU OC degrades over time as well for Haswell-E. Check the Haswell-E overclock thread and you will find quite a lot of sad stories. Basically most Haswell-E can do pretty good in OC from out of the box until it is about a year old. Then it gradually requires higher and highrt vcore to stay stable at that OC.  However I believe the situation is only applicable when the CPU is being pushed over 4.5GHz. For moderate OC with vcore at or below 1.2V the degradation should be much slower.


I say anything over 145W is what starts them dying. They are rated for 130W only, and most do stock clocks at far less than that. Breaking that 130W limit down to individual sections of the chip is where things get weird, and make it hard to track.

My Skylake chip is rated to 91W, does stock @ ~70W (board-dependent). OC to 4.7 GHz takes it just a wee bit over, and anything higher requires huge voltage boosts.

Not many look at power consumption over the 8-pin connector with a clamp meter like I do though, maybe no one else does, so getting a large enough sample size to look into this sort of thing is a bit rough.

My "retail" 5930K review chip hits a limit at just shy of 4.7 GHz, and did degrade a little bit. My ES chip does 5 GHz with similar power draw compared to the retail, and hasn't degraded at all.

With all that said, my best advice is too keep your chip @ under 130W over the 8-pin, and to be very careful when clocking cache. The added performance form the boost of clocking cache isn't really there like it is with small Haswell anyway.


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## xkm1948 (May 4, 2016)

cadaveca said:


> With all that said, my best advice is too keep your chip @ under 130W over the 8-pin, and to *be very careful when clocking cache. The added performance form the boost of clocking cache isn't really there like it is with small Haswell anyway*.



Cannot agree more. Learned my lesson the hard way.


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## RejZoR (Jul 31, 2016)

With BIOS 3301 I can't overclock my RAM at all anymore. Not even 2600MHz is bootable anymore. W00t!? I can only decrease timings a bit, I wonder if it's even stable...


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## xkm1948 (Aug 1, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> With BIOS 3301 I can't overclock my RAM at all anymore. Not even 2600MHz is bootable anymore. W00t!? I can only decrease timings a bit, I wonder if it's even stable...



That is weird. What RAM IC do you have. Samsung ICs are far better than Hynix from my experience.


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## RejZoR (Aug 1, 2016)

I frankly dont' even know. But before with right voltage and loose timings, I could boot with 2800MHz. Now it's just 2400MHz and nothing else. Maybe with 1.8V it would work XD


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## cdawall (Aug 1, 2016)

This is about where I maxed out (different board)


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## RejZoR (Aug 1, 2016)

My RAM is dud now. But maybe something changed in regard of CPU. Maybe I can clock it higher now. Lets see


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## erixx (Aug 1, 2016)

Tip after many joyfull and horrific X99 overclocking nights: reset you bios to default values, use MemOK! and start over again.
X99 bios tends to walk away in strawberry fields forever. And does not like to be pushed too hard. Use auto values as much as possible.

I also used Cadaveca's tip to increment the power band (read his latest Trident Z 3886 review)


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## RejZoR (Aug 1, 2016)

Ok, reset everything. Haven't tried fiddling with RAM yet, but I'm typing this from 5820K ticking at 4.8 GHz  My smile goes all the way around. Maybe my BIOS was really walking in strawberry fields because before I couldn't get it past 4.5 GHz either. Hm. Now, to the RAM


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## RejZoR (Aug 1, 2016)

Nope. CPU overclocks better now, RAM is basically unmovable now. All I can do is give it 1T command timing and that's it. Lowering other timings or increasing clock makes it super unstable or simply unbootable. And not even with beeping error for RAM. It simply doesn't boot in absolute silence. :/ Oh well. That's a disappointment, can't overclock the ram even for 200MHz. I guess I can't have best everything if the CPU is such a gem.


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## basco (Aug 2, 2016)

i think the newer bios are more optimized for samsung memory.
when x99 came out hynix was tha flavor but now everything turns to samsung


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## xkm1948 (Aug 2, 2016)

Are you sure that 4.8GHz is stable? Try some good old 16hrs Realbench Stress test or 8hrs of OCCT. AIDA64 stress test simply won't cut it to stress X99 platform enough.


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## xkm1948 (Aug 2, 2016)

basco said:


> i think the newer bios are more optimized for samsung memory.
> when x99 came out hynix was tha flavor but now everything turns to samsung



Hynix IC chips are shitty at best. My first set from ADATA DDR4-2800 was Hybix IC. Eventually it refused to boot at rated 2800 and would constantly drop one stick out of four. I thought that was Sabertooth X99's problem or the CPU's IMC problem. Nope. Turns out it was just shitty Hynix.Since the exact same MoBo and CPU would gladly take my 128GB RAM at DDR4-3000, with CL14-14-14-35 timing!

My current GSKILL set utilize top of the line Samsung IC. Never had any stability problem.


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## xkm1948 (Aug 2, 2016)

Dude be careful. I saw your cooler is a single 120mm radiator. Pushing 4.8GHz on Haswell-E with your cooler is a little bit risky.


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## EarthDog (Aug 2, 2016)

Been here 6 years and still triple post like its going out of style...  

Merge that shyte n00b!


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## TheHunter (Aug 6, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> My RAM is dud now. But maybe something changed in regard of CPU. Maybe I can clock it higher now. Lets see



Well some bios do make ram OC go shit.. Saw it on my Z87 delux too.. Mostly newer..

I could OC my 2133 to 2400 or even 2666, then with latest bios 2400mhz no go.. I reverted to older  when I still had 2133 ram.


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## xkm1948 (Aug 6, 2016)

The thing with DDR4 is the IC has been heavily binned from the start. For example, if the IC can run DDR4-3000 it WILL be put to make DDR4-3000 sticks. So most lower speed RAM IC are actually of worse quality comparing with higher speed RAM IC.  In other words, you get what you pay for.


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## RejZoR (Aug 6, 2016)

Not quite. Because while that ram is 3000, it would mean that RAM shouldn't overclock at all either since it's already on the IC limit. But that's usually not the case...


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## carex (Aug 6, 2016)

ram overclocking is a waste of time .....try n put that much time n effort in cpu and then GPU overclocking


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## RejZoR (Aug 6, 2016)

I have all that already overclocked enough.


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## RejZoR (Mar 9, 2017)

Ok, I've had a breakthrough. I don't get it how, but somehow I managed to OC my 2400 MHz (15-15-15-35-2T) RAM to 2666 MHz like 2 days ago. What's bizarre, I've already tried this before, with same BIOS and it just didn't work. Now I can pump out 2666 MHz at 15-15-15-25-1T and only 1.280 V. That's 266 MHz extra with tighter timings. I just don't get it how my PC overclocks better at low voltages. Not that I'm complaining, it's just really weird since we are used to crank voltages high to achieve anything...

2800 MHz still doesn't want to function (no POST), but it's a decent OC I guess. Besides, I have to poke second tier timings, supposedly those matter more with DDR4 than primary timings.


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## cdawall (Mar 9, 2017)

try 1.35v and a bit lower timing. All of the memory chips I have seen for DDR4 scale to at least 1.35v.


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## RejZoR (Mar 9, 2017)

What was your stock RAM clock? I've never had much experience with RAM overclocking, so I have no idea how far they even scale. Is 2400 -> 2800MHz a lot or can you get even more? I just have no idea. 3000 or 3200 MHz would be sweet though, but just seems too high to obtain from 2400 MHz stock modules...


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## cdawall (Mar 9, 2017)

These are just running their XMP. The original set I had in there were 2800mhz and I had those over 3200. It just depends on the kit that you are using. Any idea what modules are under the heatspreader?

This is the original set I had in the rig


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## RejZoR (Mar 9, 2017)

XMP on mine is just 2400 MHz. So, 2800 MHz is kinda an expected limit I'd say. 2666 MHz being OK-ish OC.


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## cdawall (Mar 9, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> XMP on mine is just 2400 MHz. So, 2800 MHz is kinda an expected limit I'd say. 2666 MHz being OK-ish OC.



That 2800mhz kit saw over 3400...It really just depends on what memory you ended up with.


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## RejZoR (Mar 9, 2017)

It would be easier if I'd know what changed since last time when I couldn't get it even to 2666MHz... All the settings are the same, same BIOS, but now it goes somewhere. Before, it wouldn't move anywhere from 2400MHz no matter the voltage. Tried even 1.35 and 1.4V.


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## cdawall (Mar 9, 2017)

That is weird...


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## eidairaman1 (Mar 9, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> It would be easier if I'd know what changed since last time when I couldn't get it even to 2666MHz... All the settings are the same, same BIOS, but now it goes somewhere. Before, it wouldn't move anywhere from 2400MHz no matter the voltage. Tried even 1.35 and 1.4V.


YMMV
What ive learned atleast with my system is that I found the fastest 2400 trident kit on the Gskill site ( i have ripjaws 2133 16GB kit), set my ram exactly the same as that kit with the same voltage, it runs just fine, i then went back and adjusted timings 1 by 1 until they wouldn't boot or would cause a BSOD, now have the tightest timings my ram will go for stability.

Look at my signature below


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## RejZoR (Mar 9, 2017)

cdawall said:


> That is weird...



I know. If I wait long enough and re-try, I might get it to 3000 MHz one day XD


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## eidairaman1 (Mar 9, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> I know. If I wait long enough and re-try, I might get it to 3000 MHz one day XD



From advertising on the site here they tend to do 2666 easily
http://www.hyperxgaming.com/us/memory/fury-ddr4

Edit:

This is the secret sauce you might be looking for

http://www.thinkcomputers.org/kingston-hyperx-fury-ddr4-2400-32gb-memory-kit-review/6/


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## EarthDog (Mar 9, 2017)

I have the 3000 sticks with 6950x...


I...uh...am not entirely sure why I posted that... sorry...


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## RejZoR (Mar 10, 2017)

I think I know why I'm having problems overclocking RAM. It's because it's HyperX. The thing they do is like XMP, but they somehow do it that system recognizes settings even without XMP. With normal RAM, if I set RAM frequency to AUTO, it'll just select 2133 MHz because that's the baseline for X99. But in this case, it always auto selects 2400MHz (the rated speed for these Fury sticks). And I think this feature interferes with the overclocking process. A reminder for future, if you want to overclock, take some other brand. If you want to just have best plug and play functionality, go with HyperX, coz it's easy to setup since it requires no tweaking or selection of XMP profiles.


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## cdawall (Mar 10, 2017)

All XMP profiles work on plug and play. That is the point.

If you select auto it will default to your memories default which is 2400 hence why it selects 2400. That is how that works.


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## FireFox (Mar 10, 2017)

@RejZoR practically you're Ocing the Ram using BCLK?


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## RejZoR (Mar 10, 2017)

No, my CPU is purely overclocked by multipliers. 100x45. RAM is OC'ed on its own.


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## MrGenius (Mar 10, 2017)

cdawall said:


> All XMP profiles work on plug and play. That is the point.
> 
> If you select auto it will default to your memories default which is 2400 hence why it selects 2400. That is how that works.


XMP is an overclocking profile. It's by defintition not default. If I select auto on my 2666 DDR3 they run @ 1333 default. XMP @ 2666 won't even boot if I select it. My 3570K can't run them any higher than 2600.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/gaming/extreme-memory-profile-xmp.html


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## FireFox (Mar 10, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> Set BCLK and strap to 100MHz, set DRAM ratio to 100:100.



You are talking about BCLK


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## EarthDog (Mar 10, 2017)

XMP is NOT overclocking the memory sticks. They are RATED to run those speeds. Note how it doesn't say 2133/2400 on any box, but lists the XMP speeds as their default? It's the PLATFORM which boots to JEDEC standards and then you enable XMP.

You ARE overclocking the CPU IMC as that is rated at the 2133/2400 speeds, but NOT the sticks when using XMP.


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## Aenra (Mar 10, 2017)

Reading the last two pages reveals either a lack in methodology, or perhaps your avoiding to state the obvious, which is understandable above a certain level of expertise.. just cannot know which. Am too new in all this, so this is more of a question than a comment O.K.? 

So that said? Rej?
i) does your motherboard allow you to change the RAM ratio?
ii) have you seen Raja's post in Asus Rog regarding optimal ratios in Asus mobos?
iii) if the answer to i) is no, have you tried disabling XMP, keeping your modified BCLK, but changing the RAM frequency manually so as to clock it _down_ to what it's supposed to run while in XMP?
iv) have you done any testing to see how much SA/vccio you need so as to have the RAM stable _at_ said manually inserted (=XMP) frequency?

Because (again, this is more question than comment), my understanding is that unless you're right there, now, timings are the wrong thing to mess with.
You get the highest frequency you can get while stable and _then_ you touch the timings, assuming you can afford the extra RAM voltage.


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## cdawall (Mar 10, 2017)

MrGenius said:


> XMP is an overclocking profile. It's by defintition not default. If I select auto on my 2666 DDR3 they run @ 1333 default. XMP @ 2666 won't even boot if I select it. My 3570K can't run them any higher than 2600.
> 
> http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/gaming/extreme-memory-profile-xmp.html



2400 is a jedec standard. Hence why when he sets auto it selects 2400.


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## RejZoR (Mar 10, 2017)

I was just scrolling across page of my mobo and found this:
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_X99/#title-performance

(scroll a bit down)

The cache bus voltage adjustment. The second graph for "Memory" frequency" caught me attention. It's mentioning 2800 MHz and 3200 MHz. Are they implying increasing cache voltage might help RAM overclocking? I've never tried that in relation to RAM overclocking. Then again, apart from initial testing, I've always had it at stock 3GHz with stock voltages...


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## cadaveca (Mar 10, 2017)

Yes, cache voltage can help in some situations, so it is worth trying. Just leave cache multi alone.


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## RejZoR (Mar 10, 2017)

But muh megahurtz!


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## RejZoR (Mar 11, 2017)

I always seem to have "luck" with RAM. Every single RAM that I had was basically non-overclockable. Either I always get the most garbage memory controllers or RAM sticks. Someone above posted same Fury RAM review to go to 3000MHz easily. Well, not in my case. Yesterday I've spent two and a half hours of fidling with all the parameters in sequences, more systematic way and from what I've seen, NONE of the voltage changes do anything. NONE. Neither amp threshold or timings.

I can't understand why damn system refuses to even post no matter what beyond certain point. There is no point where it posts and is unstable later. It's either stable or entirely unbootable. Setting voltage to 1.35 (from original 1.2V) does exactly NOTHING.

For example:

*BOOTABLE and 100% stable:*
2666 MHz
14-14-14-30-1T
100% DRAM current threshold (default)
1.25 V on all DIMM channels

*WON'T EVEN POST:*
2800 MHz
18-18-18-54-2T
140% DRAM current threshold
1.35 V on all DIMM channels (I've gone even to 1.4V for a quick test)

How the hell does this make any kind of sense? I've even tried disabling all POST DRAM tests just to make the damn thing at least post and boot into Windows as recommended for "crash" benching. Nope. Won't even post. It's why I never really gone into any real RAM overclocking, it has always been a totally dud experience for me. This is the first time I keep on retrying despite constant failures...


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## cadaveca (Mar 11, 2017)

The problem is likely one of two things:

A: The memory simply is not stable somewhere between 2666 and 2800. Although this might not seem likely, some ICs are just this way.

B(the more likely reason): You are approaching the OC in the wrong way. You are adjusting voltage and primary timings, but you are not changing secondary and tertiary timings to match. Now, if you had an ROG board, and not a Sabertooth, many of those timings would be adjusted automatically for you, but not when XMP is enabled. This is why sometimes turning off XMP and just setting primary timings and then voltage can sometimes get "problematic" sticks to work.  The "problem" is that the board doesn't like the timings specified by the XMP profile.

So here you are with XMP enabled, and because of that, the default timings for both secondary and tertiary timings may be forced to the XMP profile timings, which were for a much lower speed than what you are trying to push or the board doesn't change those timings automatically.


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## RejZoR (Mar 11, 2017)

I'm not using XMP. It's disabled. I've also tried Tweaker Ai with AUTO and Manual with no real difference. Btw, I was fiddling with timing control setting that goes from 1 to 19 and corresponds to a different sets of DRAM timings (can't remember the name now). The thing is, they only say 1 coresponds to DRAM 800MHz, but I have no idea how the rest of 18 profiles are set.

I've looked at 2nd and 3rd tier timings, but I literally have no clue what they mean. Other than just blindly increasing them to make them loose...

EDIT:
There is apparently new BIOS for Sabertooth X99, version 3505. Gonna try it later today. The changelog list is significantly longer and it mentions imperoved performance and improved DRAM compatibility. Lets see...


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## cadaveca (Mar 11, 2017)

Secondary And tertiary timing tweaking can be hard for sure, but you've got a base to start off of with your own sticks. try 2133 MHz JEDEC, and then your XMP profile. Compare the timings. The change in those timings corresponds to the increase in clockspeed. If xmp is 2400, that's 266 above 2133. a similar adjustment should allow proper increase to 2666 MHz, maybe. Then another increase half of the 266 change, might get you 2800 MHz.

But do keep in mind, you do need to change ALL secondary and tertiary timings. That is a lot of timings, so it is some work to find out the "formula", but once you have the "formula", you'll find this same formula may apply to other sticks and other types of memory as well.

People have asked me how I know what timings to use when OC'ing memory for 24/7 use... I have access to many different kits, and so, I have a large database of potential timing "formulas" to apply towards getting what I want out of a set of memory. It takes time and work to apply, test, and then tweak for better, but maybe that'll give you an approach to use to getting further.

.


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## RejZoR (Mar 11, 2017)

Good thinking. If I figure out the timings jump between each DRAM clock iteration, I could probably do it. I miss the days when fiddling with primary timings was enough...

I'll certainly try this.


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## basco (Mar 11, 2017)

plz where did you find bios 3505??
and my sabertooth is not very good in oc. 1 day it likes the oc next day not. first time i have trouble with asus mb


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## RejZoR (Mar 11, 2017)

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA2011/SABERTOOTH-X99/SABERTOOTH-X99-ASUS-3505.zip

*Changelog:*

SABERTOOTH X99 BIOS 3505
1.Improve System Performance.
2.Improved DRAM compatibility
3.Fixed TPM issue
4.Add in turn-off function of LED under S3/S4/S5 status.
5.Fixed Samsung device (SM961, printer) issues.

BIOS link was sent to me by: @xkm1948


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## RejZoR (Mar 11, 2017)

Ok, updated the BIOS, calculated the timings delta between 2133MHz and 2400MHz XMP profile, doubled the obtained delta and applied it to 2800MHz and it still just won't boot (also increased the DRAM voltage). There were some secondary timings that are always 0 (zero). Not sure what to do with these. Any other ideas why is my system so stubborn to overclock RAM?


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## EarthDog (Mar 11, 2017)

I don't get this delta garbage...just give actual values.

What is System Agent and VccIO set at/reading currently?


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## eidairaman1 (Mar 11, 2017)

Long ago for me I trusted Corsair and Kingston. I liked Mushkin and Crucial. I now prefer GSkill


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## RejZoR (Mar 11, 2017)

No, this was to elevate timings according to the timings jump between 2133 and 2400 mhz. And then I just applied it forward for higher frequencies in same jumps.


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## EarthDog (Mar 11, 2017)

EarthDog said:


> What is System Agent and VccIO set at/reading currently?


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## xkm1948 (Mar 11, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> Ok, updated the BIOS, calculated the timings delta between 2133MHz and 2400MHz XMP profile, doubled the obtained delta and applied it to 2800MHz and it still just won't boot (also increased the DRAM voltage). There were some secondary timings that are always 0 (zero). Not sure what to do with these. Any other ideas why is my system so stubborn to overclock RAM?



2800 is a tough RAM speed for HWE, especially 5820K. If your RAM is good, either 2666@100BCLK or 3200@100BCLK should be easier to achieve. 

I had a tough time getting DDR4-3000 to post on 100BCLK, however it is rock solid for 3000@125BCLK, that is even with command rate set to 1.


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## RejZoR (Mar 11, 2017)

Sweet mother of god and 3200 baby jesuses. How did you know lol?  I couldn't get it to post at 2800 or 3000. Like ever. Set to 3200, adjusted the timings, set voltage to 1.35V, upped the DRAM current threshold and I got a POST beep!  I'm typing this with RAM speeding at insane 3200 MHz with 18-18-18-40 timings. It's not stability tested yet, but the fact it has booted and it's stable enough for browsing is just out of this world amazing  Fiddling from here on to get it stable should be much easier now. Dude, thank you billion times!


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## EarthDog (Mar 11, 2017)

What did you change...?

Man, its hard to follow you when you don't mention squat for details..


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## RejZoR (Mar 11, 2017)

Well, first, I've adjusted the timings like cadaveca suggested. Sabertooth X99 is not exactly meant for extreme overclocking and it's not auto adjusting secondary timings according to increased RAM clock speed. So I had to extrapolate it from stock 2133MHz and 2400MHz XMP profile by simply reading values of each and calculating the delta between both. Then use this delta value for increased clock in same steps. HOWEVER! I still couldn't get system to boot with just that. Tried 2800MHz, 2933MHz and 3000MHz with no success.  And then xkm1948 dropped by and said, just go with 3200MHz directly. And so I have. And I was greeted by a glorious beep after the boot POST. Something i couldn't get no matter I tried so far. 

Enough info? Now I just have to test stability. So far, AIDA64 didn't lockup during individual RAM benchmarks. Which is a good start.


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## EarthDog (Mar 11, 2017)

So... what's you SA and VccIO at?


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## RejZoR (Mar 11, 2017)

I left them at Auto actually. Need to check those so they aren't too high by any chance.


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## EarthDog (Mar 11, 2017)

I'm wondering when jumping to 3200 directly if it raised it and that is why we are now working.


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## RejZoR (Mar 11, 2017)

Not really imo. I've manually increased those before and none of the clocks between 2800 and 3000 worked. I was using really elevated voltages on all subsystems that mater for RAM stability and it just didn't even post. After switching to 3200MHz directly, it booted up fine. Gonna check the voltages now...

EDIT:
CPU Agent: 1.16V
VCCIO CPU: 1.4V (on Auto), have tuned it down to 1.15V because 1.4V is red colored if inserted manually and that's just WAY too high. I only use yellow marked voltages. System boots, but have no idea about stability yet...


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## RejZoR (Mar 11, 2017)

Now I'm facing a different problem due to so high RAM clock. Stability. Not sure what to do with voltages at this point, especially VCCIO. Don't want to drive it too high and it already goes purple at 1.16V so that's a bit worrying long term. But without it, it's somewhat stable, but not enough.


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## RejZoR (Mar 11, 2017)

Ok, I was just wondering one rather important thing.

Lets assume I have bought a 3200 MHz RAM with XMP. I stick it in, apply XMP and it all works great.

How high does VCCIO CPU get set automatically in such scenario? Would still automatically go as high as 1.3 or 1.4V or would it AUTO set different voltages for such RAM which is meant to run at 3200MHz, but it's running at that speed non the less. Logic say that VCCIO CPU goes really high purely based on RAM clock, then it doesn't really matter whether it's just highly overclocked slow RAM or highly factory clocked RAM. Do things work like that?

Would need someone with Sabertooth X99, 5820K and factory clocked 3200MHz RAM to make a reading on VCCIO CPU voltage to see if it behaves the same as my overclocked 2400MHz RAM as far as VCCIO CPU voltage goes... Don't want to fry my CPU or some part of it with high voltages...


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## xkm1948 (Mar 12, 2017)

VCCSA is the more important one in terms of high speed RAM stability. 

I have DDR4-3000, but I am pushing the IMC to the breaking point by using 128GB of RAM. With DDR4-3000 my VCCSA only needs ~1.18V to be 24*7 stable. If I bump up to DDR4-3200 then I would need ~1.3V VCCSA to make the system pass Linux HCI stability test, way too high for my liking.

High speed RAM is usually recommended because they are heavily binned to run at that specific speed. I learned my lesson the hard way. When I was building my system I went with ADATA DDR4-2800 32GB. Those sticks have Hynix chips which are not that great. I keep getting BSOD in Windows 10 just by enabling XMP. I had to use it as 2666 instead. Then with my GSKILL 128GB kit, my 5820K happily chewed up all 128GB along with XMP@DDR4-3000 during the first startup. So yes, high speed RAM definitely makes a world of difference. If I were you I would first try to go with super tight timing at DDR4-2666@100BCLK. This should be more beneficial than trying to get DDR4-3200 to be stable at a loose timing.

If you have the money I would say go with GSKILL TridentZ DDR4-3200 kits with 14-14-14-34 timing. It has been shown multiple times that DDR4-3200 at 14-14-14-34 timing is about as best you can get on HWE.

If you plan to go BWE, you can go with higher speed RAMs. Just remember always go with RAM that run at 100BCLK instead of 125. 100 is a lot easier and stabler for BWE/HWE IMC to handle.

For RAM stability test I recommend Linux HCI test. Just enable native BASH mode in Windows 10 and you can run the Google developped RAM stability test in Windows.

I would also recommend you post your question over here, the RAM guru there might be of some help as well:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1569364/...70-and-x99-24-7-memory-stability-thread/0_100


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## cadaveca (Mar 12, 2017)

auto voltages change on what board you use. What each CPU needs will change on the CPU. I use 1.12 VCCSA and 1.1875 on VCCIO for 3400 MHz on my 5930K, but my CPU also does 5 GHz easily.


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## xkm1948 (Mar 12, 2017)

cadaveca said:


> auto voltages change on what board you use. What each CPU needs will change on the CPU. I use 1.12 VCCSA and 1.1875 on VCCIO for 3400 MHz on my 5930K, but my CPU also does 5 GHz easily.


 Damn that is a good HWE! You wanna switch with mine? You already have tons of cool toys to play with!


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## cadaveca (Mar 12, 2017)

xkm1948 said:


> Damn that is a good HWE! You wanna switch with mine? You already have tons of cool toys to play with!


ES CPU binned for me by hardware maker. I have every ES CPU I ever got, won't give them up EVAR!!!


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## xkm1948 (Mar 12, 2017)

cadaveca said:


> ES CPU binned for me by hardware maker. I have every ES CPU I ever got, won't give them up EVAR!!!



Oh come on, these HWE are now too old for your likings! Peasents like me on the other hand will treasure them a lot.


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## xkm1948 (Mar 12, 2017)

3402 BIOS:



 


3505 BIOS





Not much difference in terms of performance. Boot up speed does improved a lot. Same overclocking level.


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## RejZoR (Mar 12, 2017)

What kind of voltages as max on SA and VCCIO would you recommend for 24/7 ? I need to roughly know what's still acceptable so I know what I can work with.

The thing is, the jump to 3200 MHz made it bootable, but it's such a big jump it needs WAY more volts than it would at 2800 or 3000. But those damn clocks just don't work for some reason. So I'm again in this strange limbo lol


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## xkm1948 (Mar 12, 2017)

well best of luck man. I am done tweaking my sabertooth for now. stability and productivity comes first and I can't afford too long of a down time. If I ever get a 6950X for cheap one day I will revisit this.


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## RejZoR (Mar 12, 2017)

It would be easier to stabilize 2800 and 3000, but those don't even make system bootable which is super annoying. 2666 still works rock solid, so if everything fails, I'll resort back to 2666 and just lower the timings. But I generally must be very close because it goes through several loops of RealBench Heavy Multithreading test before locking up.

EDIT:
Though, after checking several X99 memory scaling tests, 2666MHz with tight timings seems to be by far the best performing on X99, beating 3200MHz most of the time. It's all small differences anyway, but I think I'll just go with that. 3200MHz does sound really nice, but it's just not worth the extra strain on the board and RAM in a form of elevated voltages. I mean, I can run 2666MHz at 14-14-14-30-1T stable at 1.25V. And now that I sort of have a feeling for secondary timings, I might fiddle with those to achieve something like 12-12-12-30-1T. That would be sweet.


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## xkm1948 (Mar 12, 2017)

Do you have a 3200kit or 2800kit?


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## RejZoR (Mar 12, 2017)

It's a 2400 kit


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## basco (Mar 12, 2017)

the new bios is really good! finally
like RejZor said-faster boot (damn my mobo was slow) some voltages i needed for oc are back to the low level of bios 2101.

@RejZoR did you try in the tweaker corner to enable the haswell sfr adjust? and or *internal pll overvoltage*


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## RejZoR (Mar 12, 2017)

I haven't. I don't think SFR is useful for casual users, I think that's for when you need access to special registers in CPU...


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## basco (Mar 12, 2017)

on bios 3402 sfr helped me reach  higher ram frenzys
and pll overvolt helped me get higher cache ratios

so you mean sfr is like an on\off button for the oc socket?


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## xkm1948 (Mar 12, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> It's a 2400 kit



As I said, DDR4 memory IC chips are heavily binned into different speed/timing tiers. Chances are you will never be able to get your kit to be stable at 2800/3000/3200.  From what I have gathered from you I would say 2666 with tight timing will be your best bet. RAM vendors charge a premium for high speed high density RAM for a reason. @cadaveca has tested tons of RAM kits he may have better knowledge on memory IC chip quality.

Also this means potentially your 5820K's IMC may be stronger than expected. If you pair your 5820K with some good quality DDR4-3200 14-14-14-34 kits it may just work right out of the box.


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## basco (Mar 13, 2017)

one of the easier ways to get timings down is Dram clock period:
its like setting the chipset to run at lower timings for another speed bin(ex. 2133(=normally level 11) + level9=timings for 1866)
and twcl as low as possible.

on my sabertooth min+max cache ratio is inverted


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## RejZoR (Mar 13, 2017)

The problem with that setting is that they tell me setting one is DRAM 800 and then I have ZERO idea how it progresses forward to level 19. So stupid.


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## basco (Mar 13, 2017)

i dont know exactly too but mine is running 2200mhz c12 with dram clock period of 9.
2400 needs 10 but i have no good imc.
that should give you an idea


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## TheHunter (Mar 18, 2017)

Cpu system agent VCCSA is mostly the key, not sure about VCCIO atm, think I don't have that on my mobo or is that VTT DDR? In my case VTT DDR  seems to auto adjust according to higher ram OC.


The most sensitive timings are 3rd timings., but also yield best ram bandwidth. In my case  @ 2600MHZ  - auto it sets them too loose and I actually get negative bandwidth scaling then at lest say 2400. Also I need DIGI+ ram current at least 110-120% (max goes to 130%).

Ok DDR3 is a bit different, but adv timings are somewhat the same if Im not mistaken.

Some of my testing adventures with 3rd timings
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/intel-haswell-overclocking-clubhouse.185344/page-59


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## RejZoR (Mar 19, 2017)

Then how can you explain this:

2400 MHz - Bootable and stable (advertised RAM speed)
2666 MHz - Bootable and stable
2800 MHz - Unbootable under any voltage or timing configuration
2933 MHz - Unbootable under any voltage or timing configuration
3000 MHz - Unbootable under any voltage or timing configuration
3200 MHz - Bootable, but unstable even under elevated voltages. Not crashing per se, but ASUS RealBench keeps reporting that it's files got corrupted during 10 loops of the Heavy Multitasking test.

By what logic are those 3 frequencies entirely unbootable no matter what, but 3200 MHz is almost stable. It just goes against all logic.


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## eidairaman1 (Mar 19, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> Then how can you explain this:
> 
> 2400 MHz - Bootable and stable (advertised RAM speed)
> 2666 MHz - Bootable and stable
> ...



Spd tables/xmp profiles are confused.


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## cadaveca (Mar 19, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> Then how can you explain this:
> 
> 2400 MHz - Bootable and stable (advertised RAM speed)
> 2666 MHz - Bootable and stable
> ...


Yep, this is normal. It's a memory hole and those speeds require BCLK OC on some board/mem/CPU combos. Most memory kits of those speeds (other than 2800) will automagically use BCLK OC when you enable XMP profile. I tested quite a few 3000 MHz kits, all of them set 125 BCLK.


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## xkm1948 (Mar 19, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> Then how can you explain this:
> 
> 2400 MHz - Bootable and stable (advertised RAM speed)
> 2666 MHz - Bootable and stable
> ...




From what I have learned tweaking my Sabertooth X99, HWE IMC really hates 2800/3000. It is  a lot easier on the IMC to work on 3200. It has something to do with 100BCLK. Since both 2800 and 3000 requires 125BCLK while 3200 and 2666 works on 100BCLK. It is definitely something to do with the HWE IMC.

If I were you I'd spend sometime reading the RVE RAM tweaking guide over ROG forum, it helped me a lot while I was still using ADATA RAM@2800. Higher VCCSA is not always good, there is a sweet spot for each and every combination of CPU and RAM. Just going up or down in 0.05V increments for VCCSA until you can find one fairly stable.

For primary timing, loosen it to 17-18-18-35 at least. Depends on the RAM IC of your kit. Samsung IC overclocks a lot better than Hynix IC.

For UEFI settings, go to External Digi power control. Set DRAM Phase Control to "Extreme", Set DRAM current capacity to 140%.  For DRAM Eventual Voltage enter something like 1.35~1.37V. For the DRAM voltage in the main AITweaker tab enter 1.37~1.38V. The higher DRAM voltage help passing DRAM training during post while maintain a working voltage in Windows(ie, "eventual")

Also, adjusting CPU power phase to either Optimized or Extreme also helps stability for higher RAM speed. At least that was the case for me. Using "Standard" I can't get my DDR4-3000 to even post.


So far 3505 UEFI is the best for Sabertooth X99. Steady RAM/L3 Cache performance increase over 3402. Boot up time has decreased drastically(now takes less than 5 seconds! It used to take ~25 seconds cold booting)  And now it seems I need less vcore to keep my 4.25GHz OC stable. It used to be ~1.2V. Now it is about 1.18V. Lower voltage cooler CPU. Looks like improvement to me.


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## RejZoR (Mar 19, 2017)

The thing is, I could easier stabilize 2800 or 3000 RAM. But 3200 is already so high I can't stabilize it no matter what. Even when it looks great, RealBench starts whining in around 8th loop about some corruption...


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## cadaveca (Mar 19, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> The thing is, I could easier stabilize 2800 or 3000 RAM. But 3200 is already so high I can't stabilize it no matter what. Even when it looks great, RealBench starts whining in around 8th loop about some corruption...


The Sabertooth isn't exactly a hardcore memory-clocking board though, so you are limited by what the BOIS offers. If you have the RAmpage board, you might have better luck. I am using an MSI X99 GAMING PRO CARBON, and both my 5930K and my 6950X can run all memory dividers without any issues on 100 MHz BCLK. You can see that in some of the memory reviews; 3000 MHz sticks on 100 BCLK, no problem. X99 did not offer many memory multipliers at launch, but with successive BIOS updates, the other dividers started to work, and now are rock-stable for me. (keeping in mind I'm using sticks rated at those higher speeds or higher)


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## jboydgolfer (Mar 19, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> but somehow I managed to OC my 2400 MHz (15-15-15-35-2T) RAM to 2666 MHz like 2 days ago



did you happen to change the DRAM reference clock from 100 to 133? that would account for the 266Mhz increase? i know this is an older post, but i happened upon this one, and thought id see if you found the reason for the jump in Mhz.


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## xkm1948 (Mar 19, 2017)

cadaveca said:


> The Sabertooth isn't exactly a hardcore memory-clocking board though, so you are limited by what the BOIS offers. If you have the RAmpage board, you might have better luck. I am using an MSI X99 GAMING PRO CARBON, and both my 5930K and my 6950X can run all memory dividers without any issues on 100 MHz BCLK. You can see that in some of the memory reviews; 3000 MHz sticks on 100 BCLK, no problem. X99 did not offer many memory multipliers at launch, but with successive BIOS updates, the other dividers started to work, and now are rock-stable for me. (keeping in mind I'm using sticks rated at those higher speeds or higher)




I concur that.  Sabertooth X99 is not the champion overclocker. It is weaker comparing to both X99E-WS and Rampage5Edition10.  Mostly it is just the 5 yrs warranty that is attractive. However on the other hand I never had any ASUS MoBo die on me within warranty.


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## RejZoR (Mar 20, 2017)

So, 2800, 2933 or 3000 can only be done with BCLK 125 (just realized the XMP stuff you guys were mentioning). That kinda sucks since that overclocks everything. Might still give it a try for the lolz.

Wasn't expecting this to be an issue since Sabertooth X99 kinda falls into the upper range, but they apparently spent more time on ruggidnes than OC and all that. It's still a decent overclocker, just not extreme one. I guess this might also be the reason why CPU clocks to 4.5GHz easily with 1.125V and then needs 1.3V for 4.6GHz and even then stability is questionable. Might be some trickery behind the scenes causing this...


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## basco (Mar 20, 2017)

i had not taken the sabertooth but i got it cheap-and really the 3505 bios changes a lot of i was not satisfied.
with samsung mem i have a hole too in 2800 2933 but 3200 boots but i did not try to get it stable
now even 2400mhz with dram clock 9 is possible before 10 was a must.
lower oc voltages like xkm1948 is seeing
this is the bios i was waiting for from beginning and for that price this mobo was sold it should have been from start(and asus was\is really good at bios\sabertooth was my 1st not satisfied\my cents).

and i think that you should really try: haswell sfr adjust and internal pll overvoltage if you go over 4,5ghz and can´t get it stable because i think both help for higher oc´s on some cpu´s and some not.
i am running 4,0 so no need


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## xkm1948 (Mar 20, 2017)

On a completely different note. I find it pretty funny that it took ASUS almost 2 years to iron out most bugs and improve performance on X99 platform. Yet we see people crying over how X370 is not a mature enough system. Double standards much huh?


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## Tatty_One (Mar 20, 2017)

xkm1948 said:


> On a completely different note. I find it pretty funny that it took ASUS almost 2 years to iron out most bugs and improve performance on X99 platform. Yet we see people crying over how X370 is not a mature enough system. Double standards much huh?


Good point, however you are comparing one board manufacturer on the chipset unlike X370.


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## erixx (Mar 20, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> Not really imo. I've manually increased those before and none of the clocks between 2800 and 3000 worked. I was using really elevated voltages on all subsystems that mater for RAM stability and it just didn't even post. After switching to 3200MHz directly, it booted up fine. Gonna check the voltages now...
> 
> EDIT:
> CPU Agent: 1.16V
> VCCIO CPU: 1.4V (on Auto), have tuned it down to 1.15V because 1.4V is red colored if inserted manually and that's just WAY too high. I only use yellow marked voltages. System boots, but have no idea about stability yet...



strange. My CPU SA is 1.216 and VCCIO is 1.048 (both on AUTO). RAM at 3200 and CPU at 4200Mhz (RV10 board)


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## RejZoR (Mar 20, 2017)

xkm1948 said:


> On a completely different note. I find it pretty funny that it took ASUS almost 2 years to iron out most bugs and improve performance on X99 platform. Yet we see people crying over how X370 is not a mature enough system. Double standards much huh?



If they'll provide steady support for X370, I don't see any problems. And ASUS is known to support high end stuff for very long. I was getting tons of updates for Rampage II Gene, I get tons of updates for their router and Sabertooth X99 is getting tons of updates as well.


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## xkm1948 (Mar 21, 2017)

At this point I feel we should just use our HWE as it is. Once the AMD HEDT platform drops this summer, I bet a lot of 5960X/6950X users will be going for RyZen HEDT with 16 core 32 threads. Then we @RejZoR can snatch up those 5960X/6950X fairly cheap.


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## RejZoR (Mar 21, 2017)

Turns out 125 MHz strap doesn't work well. Half the time it just freezes on POST screen or cycles so I can't even recover it easily. I guess I'll have to wait for more BIOS updates... But I'm kinda happy with what I have at the moment. My system is overclocked as fa as it can go 100% stable and yet not a single voltage parameter is even colored yellow in BIOS. The CPU at 4.5 GHz actually runs at lower voltage than stock lol XD RAM, based on tests has the highest gain at 2666MHz so that's actually also fine. The DRAM CLK Clocks setting is at 8 with timings 13-13-13-32-1T using just 1.28V. Any lower and it doesn't even boot no matter the voltages I use on anything, so it's very tightly set as it is.

If I'll ever be upgrading, it'll be Broadwell-E class for tiny IPC gain over Hasswell-E and 14nm process. Intel kinda screwed us over with Skylake-X being on X299...


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## basco (Mar 22, 2017)

wow dram clock at 8 with 2666mhz c13 is not reachable with my imc- nice work


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## xkm1948 (Mar 23, 2017)

Tried DDR4-3200 again today on 3505 BIOS. Major fail. I forgot to change DRAM Command Rate back to 2T from 1T. Booting up and the system showing DRAM taking 1.5V!! Holy cow that scared the crap out of me. Power down right away.

So I guess I simply can't have all 8 slots of RAM filled and a cozy 100BCLK OC.


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## RejZoR (Mar 23, 2017)

In my case Auto doesn't kick in the voltage. It'll just fail to boot.


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## RejZoR (Mar 28, 2017)

Just one quick question about RAM. Again. 

The main timings have 5 values, standard 4 and the command rate.

Currently at 13-13-13-32 with command rate of 1T.

I'm wondering about the 4th number 13-13-13-*32.* In general, it's a sum of first three numbers, but sometimes it's lower. Is there any general rule of how low it's good to go? I've tried it and it goes all the way down to 13, making it 13-13-13-13 which just doesn't make sense. But it worked lol


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## xkm1948 (Mar 30, 2017)

Geez man you are gonna torture the living shit out of your RAM. Is it really worth it to squeeze that tiny amount of performance? I mean X99 is not RyZen, it does not benefit a whole lot from faster RAM.


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## RejZoR (Mar 31, 2017)

Torture is when you run it under insane voltages and clocks. Mine sort of has the clocks due to timings, but it's running at very conservative voltages. Besides, this is the first time ever that I actually overclocked RAM and I've owned OC ready systems for 15 years. Let me have the fun


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## MrGenius (Mar 31, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> I'm wondering about the 4th number 13-13-13-*32.* In general, it's a sum of first three numbers, but sometimes it's lower. Is there any general rule of how low it's good to go? I've tried it and it goes all the way down to 13, making it 13-13-13-13 which just doesn't make sense. But it worked lol


tRAS too low can erase data from the memory before it has a chance to be found/used. Which can waste data, if it's deleted before it can be found/used. tRAS too high can preserve data in the memory for longer than it needs to be stored. Which can waste time, by preventing the memory from being refilled more quickly with data.


> *tRAS Timing:* Min RAS Active Time. The amount of time between a row being activated by precharge and deactivated. A row cannot be deactivated until tRAS has completed. The lower this is, the faster the performance, but if it is set too low, it can cause data corruption by deactivating the row too soon.
> 
> tRAS = tCL + tRCD + tRP (+/- 1) so that it gives everything enought time before closing the bank.
> 
> e.g.: 2.5-3-3-*8* The bold “8” is the tRAS timing.(The 2.5-3-3-8 figure is just an example for memory timings.)



https://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/AMD/memory/131


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## erixx (Mar 31, 2017)

Updated image! On my X99 tRAS readings in default profiles are mostly 2x the previous SPD value plus 2 or 4, not the sum of all, so we have 15-15-15-35. I think based on what MrGenius said, this should be kept on the conservative side.
It is a little bit over or under 2x... Check the XMP value (22->42) compared to SPD (15->35, 14->34).

I myself I am still tweaking, mainly because when I find a fast (Aida bench) and stable (Realbench), after some weeks I notice something I dislike... and back again... I haven't even started to seriously look into System Agent (auto, because gurus say turn it up or down until you find the best, well... mmm) or DRAM voltage (going over 1.35 doesn't seem to do much)


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## RejZoR (Mar 31, 2017)

It used to be that way (sum) with older RAM like DDR2 or DDR3. 4-4-4-12 or 5-5-5-15. Those were the usual timings. It changed with DDR4. So, you're saying in my particular case, 13-13-13-26 would make somewhat the most sense? Maybe up to 13-13-13-28 ?


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## erixx (Mar 31, 2017)

Somehow, my screenie did not included the XMP values. Update it above. I would just say, regarding the 4the value, it should *not* be equal to the rest (not 13-13-13-13) bur more like what you say: 13..26, 13..28, yes.  Makes sense.


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## RejZoR (Mar 31, 2017)

Yeah, I tried 13-13-13-13 when I was decreasing it and observing how far down it would go. And it went all the way down because it's not affecting the actual "tightness" of RAM, just how often to refresh the rows. Which can go as low as you want to set it. First 3 values are not so generous and they always stop at some point.


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## cadaveca (Mar 31, 2017)

AS I might have mentioned in another thread, pay attention to page faults, especially when playing with tRAS. You may also want to try looser, because as @MrGenius says, this can make the data be "held open" longer. Either way, when the data cannot be accessed as required, this can cause a hard fault, and a slight delay as the row is "activated" again so the data can be accessed.

Think of memory as a page of paper written on, with ink that disappears over time. It needs to be refreshed periodically. The refresh also has to sync with reads and writes; each kind of done by three people. If not coordinated correctly, these three people are going to get in each other's way, and the faster they work, the less margin for error there is, making their little dance that much more difficult. There will be times when only one is touching the page, or two, or three, and there are delays (timings) added into what they do in order to ensure that this delicate balance remains working.

Reads = data outbound

Writes = data inbound

Refresh = well, that's obvious.

So, with that in mind, changing one timing isn't always the best approach. When you do, you are merely playing with the window that one timing has in relation to all the other timings, so when you then adjust another timing, your previous work might become null and void.

Also, even more important than these first four timings are the tertiary timings, which go into fine details on what each timing is doing. Think of those three arms writing on the paper; do they go up, down, left, right, and how long do they have in order to make those moves? That's what the tertiary timings are for. Adjusting these can have a much larger impact on performance, since it will tighten up the movements, rather than making sure all three operations (read, write, refresh) sync right (with respect to the clockspeed).


I hope that maybe helps you put a perspective on what it is you are changing, and how they are all important and linked together. ASUS was one of the first brands to offer us access to these timings way back when, and as such, they do tend to have a leg up on other brands when it comes to memory tweaking, but at the same time, they also then understand how this is a feature that some are willing to pay for, so not all boards offer the "flexibility" required.

To get the most out of DDR4 actually requires far higher voltages that you are pushing, but your board isn't one designed to offer that flexibility to get the most out of your sticks, but it still will allow you to play lots. Just understand that sometimes you'll run into hard walls that you simply won't be able to jump over, because the BIOS isn't always willing. So, when the BIOS isn't willing, you gotta whip it into shape and tell it what to do! That means playing with these other timings!


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## RejZoR (Mar 31, 2017)

Secondary and tertiary timings are already set as low as they can go using DRAM CLK Clock setting which basically adjusts all 2nd and 3rd timings to a specific DRAM speed timings with just one setting.

As for the clocks, I'm actually super happy with what I have. I literally don't know anyone with 6 core CPU running at such clock and such insane low voltage. And the outcome with RAM is also pretty sweet. 2666 MHz with such timings is pretty impressive imo. Plus, as I've researched, 2666 MHz actually makes the biggest gains on X99, only to be beaten by 3200MHz in one instance, I think it was Cinebench. So, even if it's not absolute extreme, I'm really happy coz I've gained a lot without even pushing hardware at all in terms of voltages. Like I've said before, all this is achieved with voltages that don't even get colored even yellow in BIOS. That's pretty impressive by itself imo.


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## erixx (Mar 31, 2017)

BRAVO! Cadaveca: man! That mus be the best lesson i have ever heard about RAM!
I wish we had a place here to creat a Knowledge Base. For now I have created a OneNote book for this kind of masterclasses 

I said voltage doe snot help, totally wrong, for sure. But I have loaded some of the "ROG RAM profiles in the BIOS for single-sided Samsung 8x4 sticks, 1,5 v, 3200Mhz" and it ups voltages, lowers all settings, but finally I do not get better benchmarks, and such extreme settings make me afraid of BSOD's or worse for 24/7 use.


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## RejZoR (Mar 31, 2017)

DDR4 is meant to run at max 1.45V. And even that is already pushing it. For 24/7 I'd stick to max 1.4V.


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## erixx (Mar 31, 2017)

maybe those UNdocumented (75% of all bios RAM settings) are for the nitroboyz...

here is an unending and chaotic thread http://www.overclock.net/t/1569364/official-ddr4-z170-z270-and-x99-24-7-memory-stability-thread/3240

Gotta study more about DRAM CLK Period...

We agreed that Cache Max and min multi should be leftr on auto, right? (but I get better results tweaking this than tweaking Ram timings!)


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## RejZoR (Mar 31, 2017)

The main problem with cache is degradation. And it's not voltage, but clock induced. Which means no matter what you do, it'll degrade faster. Work on CPU clock instead, it's more important for most things and contributes to CPU degradation the least.


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## EarthDog (Mar 31, 2017)

How do cache hits effect the life of the cpu more than the main clock on the cpu?


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## cadaveca (Mar 31, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> Secondary and tertiary timings are already set as low as they can go using DRAM CLK Clock setting which basically adjusts all 2nd and 3rd timings to a specific DRAM speed timings with just one setting.


That's the sort of thing you need to take over yourself. DRAM CLK period should be set according to CAS, and will change with each IC in use. Some are more tolerant than others. But again, that's simply set some automatic profiles rather than "going full manual". It's like the difference between an automatic car, and a manual (this may be the one and only time that a car analogy actually truly suits PCs). Most car enthusiasts will prefer a manual car; it puts you in more control of the power (speed) at any given moment.

It's good that you are close to satisfied with your current set-up, but what I'd suggest is buying a completely different set of sticks and then trying again. Not to get better performance, but simply to do it all over again in a different way. Micron, Hynix and Samsung ICs all have slightly different tolerances in timings and voltage that actually make them very very different.



RejZoR said:


> The main problem with cache is degradation. And it's not voltage, but clock induced. Which means no matter what you do, it'll degrade faster. Work on CPU clock instead, it's more important for most things and contributes to CPU degradation the least.



Have you killed any chips yourself? Or just taking someone else's info and regurgitating it?  Once you have a few chips (of different SKUs), you'll see that the cache speed is not the same for all of them. So... there really isn't such a thing, or those chips with 3500 MHz cache speeds instead of 3000 wouldn't have a higher speed... they'd be more likely to die!



EarthDog said:


> How do cache hits effect the life of the cpu more than the main clock on the cpu?



cache is an area of he chip without any monitoring, and because of that, it is hard to tell what's going on here until you have a CPU that is starting to die, and you then figure out what voltage domain needs boosting in order to increase stability. Often, with my own chips, it has been CPU cache that goes first, not the cores. Why or how... I dunno.


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## RejZoR (Mar 31, 2017)

I literally don't understand what you just said for the second quote about cache... Because then you just confirmed what I said in the third one...


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## cadaveca (Mar 31, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> I literally don't understand what you just said for the second quote about cache... Because then you just confirmed what I said in the third one...


All chips in HEDT space are the same CPU, with some parts disabled. if it was speed alone that caused cache to degrade, then Intel would not have some chips with higher cache speeds than others... it would be the same across every CPU, since they are all the same physical chip.

However, cache does seem to be the first to go, but I do not believe it is due to clock alone. What causes electro-migration (which is what kills chips) is not the clock... it's the current. Sure, you could argue that the current drawn is a result of the clock, but it is not exactly that simple.

Also, cache voltage is not the same for every chip. it varies, just as core voltage and VCCSA does.


Every intel CPU I have killed (at least one from each generation) has been due to cache-related problems. Some of these CPUs have been at stock, some have been overclocked. I actually had two 3770K CPUs die within weeks of each other, with one overclocked, and one at stock (they were from the same batch). Both were resurrected for a short while by increasing cache voltage.

Cache voltage isn't just for CPU cache though, it is also for the ringbus that connects the CPU parts together. The L3 in these Intel CPU designs is part of the ringbus, but I actually think it is that bus that dies, not the cache. IT just so happens that to the end user, these are one-and-the-same thing.

(pic stolen: http://www.qdpma.com)


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## RejZoR (Mar 31, 2017)

I got all of this stuff locked to a fixed voltage now. And it's a stock voltage. Are you saying locking all voltages to low values should give you ability to OC cache with far lower chance of killing it? Because in my case, nothing can go higher because nothing is set to AUTO anymore, it can only result in a system instability or crash.


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## EarthDog (Mar 31, 2017)

That is the same concept with anything... yes. IN GENERAL, more voltage should yield faster clocks. There are of course other variables involved.


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## RejZoR (Mar 31, 2017)

No, I'm always thinking the other way around. How much can I yield out of something with minimal voltages possible. Which is why I'm wondering what's the reason for cache degradation everyone is warning about. At first I thought it's just voltage, but then someone here said it's just the clock of the cache. Might as well be cadaveca, not sure. So, I'm unsure what it is exactly now. Of course I want to clock the hell out of the cache as well, because why the hell not, I got everything overclocked. But I really don't want to kill it too soon because I have intention to run it for a while.


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## cadaveca (Mar 31, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> I got all of this stuff locked to a fixed voltage now. And it's a stock voltage. Are you saying locking all voltages to low values should give you ability to OC cache with far lower chance of killing it? Because in my case, nothing can go higher because nothing is set to AUTO anymore, it can only result in a system instability or crash.


Why do you think, when Intel has these chips run with certain settings, that overriding these settings is a good idea?

TO make testing easier, OK. Because you want to OC like past platforms, OK. I understand these. But they're the wrong approach.

When you set a voltage, what you are really doing is changing the waveform that the signaling is done on. Running at higher speeds can cause this waveform to collapse, so we increase the voltage (and thereby the shape of the waveform), so when current draw causes the wave to drop, it doesn't fall so much that the CPU can't read it.

See this picture to illustrate:








You see that waveform? That what the signaling for CPUs and memory looks like. The peaks and valleys are the 1's and 0's. Like shown in that pic, as you increase speed, you increase the jitter/noise. Although that is for graphics memory, the same applies to System ram, to cache, and to CPUs. I am most definitely NOT saying what you posted above. I am saying EXACTLY what I meant. Anyway, increasing the voltage makes it easier to "see" the peaks and valleys, through the noise. However, because the noise is so high, you hit a limit pretty quickly, and voltage doesn't help.

The correct approach to cache/ring clocking is to leave the default voltage behaviors in place, let it scale the multi and voltage according to usage, since that will minimize electro-migration. You can adjust the speed and voltage a bit higher, sure, but keep in mind, cache is memory too! As such, you can't just increase the speed, like with system ram. There are timings that need adjustment as well! Yet we do not have access to those timings, so what we can do is very limited, just like with system ram, should we not adjust timings at all.

IS this getting more complex, and harder to understand? IT should be, since understanding what's going on is really a very complicated thing.


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## RejZoR (Apr 1, 2017)

It's not complicated, I understand the basics of all this stuff. What I'm asking is just about cache degradation everyone is always freaking out about when you mention it. What conditions contribute to its degradation the most? Is it just voltage or is it clock speed or mix of both. What I'm asking is if degradation effect is almost non existent if you run it at higher clock without any voltage increase. Of course there will be some since it's running at higher clock, like everything. But how significant would it be. That's what I'm asking. Cache is no different than other things when it comes to overclocking. You get a specific clock range to work with at given voltage. It's why I have 4.5 GHz on all 6 cores using just 1.125V. I could just set it to 1.3V and have at that. But I went the length of testing how low would it go to still be fully stable. It's cooler, uses less power, but runs at same high clock.

Well, I'd apply same logic to cache then. Keep voltage as low as possible and try to get cache clock higher than stock 3 GHz with that. Now, as you say, when clock is too high and voltage too low, distinction between waveforms becomes a problem and you experience stability issues. But what if I don't? Now, this is what I'm asking here in relation to cache degradation. Do you get what I'm saying here? I'd say voltage is the biggest contributor, but I'm still asking here...


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## cadaveca (Apr 1, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> Well, I'd apply same logic to cache then. Keep voltage as low as possible and try to get cache clock higher than stock 3 GHz with that. Now, as you say, when clock is too high and voltage too low, distinction between waveforms becomes a problem and you experience stability issues. But what if I don't? Now, this is what I'm asking here in relation to cache degradation. Do you get what I'm saying here? I'd say voltage is the biggest contributor, but I'm still asking here...




Like I said above, I am not sure what causes what seems to be cache death. It could simply be a single ring-stop that ceases function, maybe a specific area.. without advanced microscopes and crap to see what's really going on, there is no real way to know, but what I can say is that for all these dead chips, boost ring/cache voltage let them live a bit longer. And like I said, even the stock-clocked CPU died in similar fashion. So it's hard to avoid something you are unaware of...

What is obvious is that the cache is a large portion of the chip's physical surface, and does consume a fair bit of power (which you can easily see by the power increases when clocking it up), but we don't have much in the way of monitoring this domain, so we don't know exact temps or anything, and without any sort of feedback other than stability, it is nigh on impossible to know how far is too far. With 3 GHz stock, going up to 3.6 GHz is a healthy 20% boost, 4 GHz is 33%... how often can you clock anything else up 30+%? And does this 30% increase have a tangible benefit? That's where I like to stop off... when there's no benefit. Most things will do 10%. GPUs, CPUs, memory, that's pretty standard. So decide how far you want to push. You know there is a risk, and that there is no real way to measure that risk, so then maybe you understand why my suggestions about cache clocking seem rather conservative.


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## RejZoR (Apr 1, 2017)

> boost ring/cache voltage let them live a bit longer



Aaaaand now I'm confused again... How is the cache the only thing I've ever come across that's suppose to live longer with more volts? Or are you saying that becomes the case when it degrades and you have to compensate it with even more volts? Less voltage usually means longer life of components. I'm trying to get this straight so I could know if I can start working on undervolting cache to lower heat and extend life further or not. I'm planning on keeping it stock clocked, but would try to play with voltage if it makes sense. Cores do run at voltages lower than CPU does at stock in AUTO mode so...


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## cadaveca (Apr 1, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> Or are you saying that becomes the case when it degrades and you have to compensate it with even more volts?



This.... and only this. I've never had cores or memory controller degrade/die, so they seem very safe to push.

BTW, lowering voltage doesn't mean something will live longer. It could lead to higher current draw, and current is deadly. Intel themselves have said that under-volting is bad, too. You don't want to run the lowest voltage possible... you want to have a bit of overhead. Temperature isn't a bad thing either, as stated by Intel. Overheating CPU cores will lead to throttle and eventual shut-down long before a CPU reaches a dangerous level. That's why they sell CPUs will coolers that can have 90c load temps.

On some boards (ie, ASUS), when you OC, current limits are removed automagically, and that is bad. Intel has settings for this for a reason... to prevent current overdraw.


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## EarthDog (Apr 4, 2017)

I've had an IMC shit the bed... it is quite rare though.


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## xkm1948 (Apr 6, 2017)

ASUS RealBench 2.54 is out. Couple changes, most importantly it now displays CPU temperature during testing. And it finally support stress test RAM size 128GB.


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