Overclocking RAM on Sabertooth X99

[EarthDog]

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

 

[xkm1948]

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.

 

[RejZoR]

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!

 

[EarthDog]

What did you change...?

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

 

[RejZoR]

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.

 

[EarthDog]

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

 

[RejZoR]

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

 

[EarthDog]

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

 

[RejZoR]

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...

 

[RejZoR]

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.

 

[RejZoR]

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...

 

[xkm1948]

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

 

[cadaveca]

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.

 

[xkm1948]

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!

 

[cadaveca]

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!!!

 

[xkm1948]

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.

 

[xkm1948]

3402 BIOS:

3505 BIOS

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

 

[RejZoR]

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

 

[xkm1948]

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.

 

[RejZoR]

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.

 

[xkm1948]

Do you have a 3200kit or 2800kit?

 

[RejZoR]

It's a 2400 kit

 

[basco]

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

 

[RejZoR]

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...

 

[basco]

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?