Overclocking the i7 950 3.06GHz with 12GB of RAM installed?

alowe23

alowe23

alowe23

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Hi - just have a question as I'm soon going to embark on a DIY system build, and I'm trying to get my head around everything before I make any purchases! I've read in a few places that having more than 6GB of RAM installed at 1600MHz and trying to overclock the CPU can make a very unstable system. Does this also apply to 1333MHz RAM? Correct me if I'm wrong, but 1600MHz on the motherboard is overclocked, and 1333MHz isn't?
The thing is, I know I'll need more than 6GB because of the work I do in music production - some of my sample libraries literally eat up whatever's there.
Would really appreciate if someone could check out this basket below and let me know if I'm likely to face problems overclocking the i7 950 to 4.00GHz, whilst having 12gb of 1333MHz RAM installed?

s2e23s.jpg
 
your basket looks good....
you may find it difficult to get those numbers with 12gb...... you will get some overclock on the i7 probs about 3.6ghz ish before you get ram issues......not sure how good the g skill ripjaws are they certainly look cool but i would always buy corsair..... somebody here will most likely say they have got more but from what ive read its hard with 12gb for a good overclock.....
you would get a good overclock on an extreme edition chip with unlocked multiplier like the 980x as you wouldnt need to touch the bclk much which in turn wouldnt increase your ram freq to much
 
TBH i would bother with 12gb
ive never come close to using all my 6 gb
even when running bc2, photoshop and image rendering software
infact i dont think ive ever seen less than 2gb free ram
 
Nice reading skills there.

Paul got 12gb of ram to run at 1600mhz, i havent managed it. Im fairly sure my processor isnt capable of it. Benchmarks have convinced me that ram speed just doesnt matter on a single cpu, triple channel ram motherboard. So i was at 4ghz cpu, 1200cas6 until my pump died.

Overclocking with all six channels in use tends to mean lower speeds and/or higher voltages. You certainly dont need to stay at stock speeds.

That said, hoping for more than 1333mhz on the ram is optimistic, and buying 1600mhz ram then using it at 1200 doesnt feel very clever. :(
 
look at the basket! its 3X 4GB that means 3 Sticks, thus easy over clocking.

but as long as you are sure you need 12GB then all is well
 
12GBs of RAM isn't really worth it ATM. Unless you have a program which has a massive memory leak, or do serious things like number crunching or rendering on a larger scale then it's just a waste of money. Hitting the clock speed you want with 12GBs will require more effort, but it won't be unstable if you do it right.
 
I agree with Vinnie - there are a very small sub-set of applications that require that volume of ram. Those applications are 99% in the media sector. You will not max out your ram playing any current game.

As to overclocking 12 or 24 GB of ram the more Ram you have the greater the challenge it is. Certainly you can achieve a modest overclock above the specified frequency of the ram but do not expect to reach outrageous amounts of overclock.
 
Can we pay attention and try and get something straight here! :)

I always thought it was the number of RAM sticks, rather than actual amount of RAM that can cause overclocking problems. Is that right or not? We have 4GB sticks now, and the OP is proposing 12GB with a 3x4GB kit. With just 3 sticks, would that not be an easy overclock just like 3x2GB? Or is it the amount of RAM that makes the difference?

Does anyone know? :)

Another point - some mobos have a 12x mem multiplier so that 1600MHz can be achieved with stock 133 BCLK. Any mobo has x6, x8 and x10 multis as far as I'm aware, so keeping the RAM speed to whatever it needs to be regardless of the BCLK should be no problem. Dont limit your options by buying 1333MHz RAM as 1600MHz is virually no more expensive last time I checked. You only pay through the nose for 2000+MHz which is usually a big pain in the bum.
 
Yes I do know. I have sets of GSkill 4GB sticks here for a future review and it is much harder to overclock based on volume as well as (not either or) increase in total number of sticks. That being said it is much easier to clock to the specified frequency of matched sets of 3 x 4GB kits. More than that and you have to work really hard.
 
3 sticks of ram at 12gb wont hurt your system OC much more than 6gb 3 sticks. Im running 6 sticks of ram at 1870mhz cl7,7,8,21 1.65v without issue on a 920 at 4.92ghz. Its 100% stable and issue free. As such I would honestly not worry :)

Andy
 
Andrew Moore said:
3 sticks of ram at 12gb wont hurt your system OC much more than 6gb 3 sticks. Im running 6 sticks of ram at 1870mhz cl7,7,8,21 1.65v without issue on a 920 at 4.92ghz. Its 100% stable and issue free. As such I would honestly not worry :)

Andy
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Thanks for the advice. To be honest I'm a bit nervous about trying to overclock the i7 myself anyway, so I'm now looking at one of your overclocked bundles, specifically the Krypton Black OPS i7 @ 4.30GHz, paired with the GTX 470 SOC. So if I were to replace the 6gb 1600MHz with 12gb 1600MHz, you reckon that would be pretty safe?
 
Loading 12gb in a system over 6gb wont affect much no. It may be safer at 4.2ghz though rather than 4.3ghz. However.. going for 6 sticks of ram and as such filling all slots may make that 4.3ghz a little difficult. As such it would probably be best to call up sales where someone there will be able to find out this information for you. It is likely though that 12gb installed over 6 slots will not show any higher OCs that 4.0ghz without causing strains on the memory controller.


Andy
 
I dont entirely agree that more than 6Gb RAM is totally unnecessary. Yes some media based softwares ceat memory (Photoshop, After Effects etc).

But what about virtual machines? I often run 3 virtualbox VMs and I am noticing a definite difference between the 8Gb of RAM i Had with my Q6600 to the 6Gb I have with my i7. Its much more sluggish on the new system and thats entirely RAM limited. As soon as I close one of the VMs down and some memory free up on the i7 it flys again.

In my opinion 6Gb is minimum and 12gb nice to have. I've been hanging my nose over a second set of Patriot viper for my system for ages, and will get round to purchasing it soon.

E-I
 
Hmm my first post....what do I know...but I currently have it at 3.8 with 12GB Corsair, I have had it stable at 4+ for testing purposes, but I use this PC as my server so generally clock it down a touch. Just feel more at ease then, although temps stay nice n cool with the H70 versus the V8 I had previously.
 
Ukpitbull said:
Hmm my first post....what do I know...but I currently have it at 3.8 with 12GB Corsair, I have had it stable at 4+ for testing purposes, but I use this PC as my server so generally clock it down a touch. Just feel more at ease then, although temps stay nice n cool with the H70 versus the V8 I had previously.
Click to expand...

Huge sig is huge!
 
It's not 12GB specifically, it's just when you fill all 6 memory slots as the memory controller is working at it's maximum potential.

That said I've had a few i7's with 6x2GB and it was solid at 1600mhz with stock QPI/IMC voltages (using good memory).

I think the biggest problem with 6 sticks is that memory manufacturers are still occasionally shipping the odd sticks that are not stable at their rated speeds and obviously if you buy 6x2GB there's twice as much chance of getting duff sticks than if you were to buy only 3x2GB.
 
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