Upgrade to 12GB RAM in i7 4.0ghz o/c

mothermachine

mothermachine

mothermachine

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Hi all,

I have a big project coming up soon (an interior animation) and I'm slightly concerned that my current 6GB isn't quite going to cut the mustard when it comes to rendering. Doing some small tests I'm already getting close to 6GB and there's way more data yet to include in the scenes.

I currently have the ocuk i7 4.0 ghz gigabyte UD5 bundle and basically hope that someone here might be able to offer some kind of walkthrough as to how to achieve either the same o/c or similar with 12GB RAM installed.

1) is it even possible
2) is it feasible

I have absolutely 0 overclocking experience so with that in mind should I even be looking at this as an option?

Many thanks in advance!
 
The simple answer is no. It's not a 100% definite no, but in general the level of overclock you can achieve with 12GB is considerably lower than with 6GB. There are lots of factors involved right down to the individual processor and memory sticks, but I think you'd have to be extremely lucky to hit 4GHz with 12GB of memory installed.
 
I've seen several guys with 12GB hitting 4GHz+ without any issues, you will just need to give more voltage that you are atm to get things stable.
 
PaulyD on here was at 4.3ghz, 12gb ram. Hopefully he'll spot this thread. I should be overclocking on 12gb in the near future, it'll be more trying but initial reading suggests that throwing more qpi voltage at the system is most of the answer. I'm initially aiming for 200 bsck with 1600mhz ram.

You're going to have to change the zero knowledge part I'm afraid though, how long do you have to spend on this?
 
thanks guys! very helpful as always :)

i admit the 0 knowledge of o/c is a problem. i only have potentially a week max to spend on it. i'll need to start rendering after that.

i guess my best route is:

1) try to render with current 6GB
2) if fine then no worries
3) if problems then buy the extra 6GB and spend a week tweaking it

I don't mind sacrificing a little CPU speed to get the 12GB but i'm only running on air (Megahalems) and already get near 75C under load.

Thanks all!
 
I should also mention that this is my one and only workstation and needs to be running super stable regardless. I wish I had a second machine to try this out on but no luck there.
 
My 2 pennies-

Stick with 6Gb and see how you go.

Overclocking a i7 is easier than any other chip, but if you need it 'super stable', leave it for now until you have more time to tinker.
Don't put a time limit on yourself to get it right and stable. Sod's law dictates that if you set a time frame to get it done it never happens and ALLWAYS takes longer than expected.
If you must have it running stable in a week leave it.
 
Mate, I'd say if you have a week to try and get your system stable, then you should go for it.

Like jon said, more Vtt than what you are currently using for 6GB is probably all it will take for you to get a stable system, it shouldn't take you that long tbh.

It isn't really difficult to overclock these chips, with the help from guys on this forum, I'm sure you will succeed.

And if you aren't able to get it stable at 4GHz, then I'm sure losing a few 100MHz isn't going to make that much of a difference.

As for temps, 75c is really good for air mate, I've seen people with load temps in the high 80's, iirc when I was only using 1 fan on my TRUE my loads were around 87c at 4GHz..
 
thanks guys

I'm 50/50 now... think I may be forced to take the plunge if rendering appears to be an issue with 6GB. until then I'll stick with the 6GB and hope for the best.

i'll be sure to post back here if I do need to go 12GB though - cheers!
 
Makes sense. Something not mentioned above is that ram frequency is pretty much irrelevant for an i7 (triple channel with one processor is excessive so bandwidth just isn't an issue), and most problems with 12gb of ram go away if you run it at 1333mhz rather than 1600mhz.

Stability is critical for me too, I suspect for similar reasons. If it takes several hours to run a piece of code you really don't want it crashing partway through. However I interpret this as requiring learning about overclocking if it's going to be used. I wouldn't trust an ocuk overclock to stay stable through 24/7 100% load which a rendering machine will closely approximate.

The settings most related to stability appear to be vcore, qpi and vdimm. Beyond this, turbo mode and load line calibration disabled while obsessing over ram frequency and timings will get it more stable still.

At high frequencies clock skews start to matter, I'm unsure about these. They can get you a higher frequency, but by the time you're adjusting them I can't see the board ever being as reliable as before this was needed.

This applies to 6gb as well as 12gb, it'll just take longer with 12. If you spend 3 or 4 hours reading about it, and save your 4ghz settings you'll probably be able to reproduce 4ghz within a couple of hours. In the process you'll learn a lot more about it and be better able to cope if you put 12gb in. I'm probably testing 4ghz @ 12gb this weekend, early next week otherwise, at which point I'll know more.
 
mothermachine said:
Hi all,

I have a big project coming up soon (an interior animation) and I'm slightly concerned that my current 6GB isn't quite going to cut the mustard when it comes to rendering. Doing some small tests I'm already getting close to 6GB and there's way more data yet to include in the scenes.

I currently have the ocuk i7 4.0 ghz gigabyte UD5 bundle and basically hope that someone here might be able to offer some kind of walkthrough as to how to achieve either the same o/c or similar with 12GB RAM installed.

1) is it even possible
2) is it feasible

I have absolutely 0 overclocking experience so with that in mind should I even be looking at this as an option?

Many thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

Yes it is possible, I have a 4Ghz OC with 12GB. Fully stable
 
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