Hi there just joined and in need of help

[NeilJames1978]

Hi there I joined this forum because I have heard VERY good things about the general level of intelligence and technical expertise some of you hold, my question is probably a very simple one and any help would be greatly recieved. I have an asus rampage formula x48 motherboard of which I am currently enjoying an overclock from 2.66ghz to 3.2ghz on my q9450cpu. My question is this, I have OCZ reaper 1066mhz ram (2x4gig in dual 2x 1gig in sinlge) but do not seem to be able to overclock it (currently running at 400mhz (x2 for ddr2=800mhz?). I would like to know how to run my cpu at 3.4ghz and my ram at 1066mhz, (I have heard of many people acheving this easily), as I am currently saving for a new system and believe this overclock would breath a bit of "new life" into my system during this gap. I have overclocked using the auto level up option in BIOS but get a bit lost when I switch to manual being totally overwhelmed with the numerous options, cpuz says to get my ram at 533 (x2 because it's ddr2 =1066mhz I understand?) by having 5-5-5-15 timings at 1.2v which is not a problem but it says my TRC sould be a 26. I cannot find this option on the settings. I thank you in advance for your consideration (cooling is not an issue). Telling me how to adjust the settings in BIOS would be helpfull as I am clearly no overclocking guru!

 

[Devrij]

Your board should support XMP for that RAM, so it should detect the timings automatically when you bump up the frequency. I can't remember the different DRAM dividers anymore (I don't miss S775!), but you should be able to raise it from the 1:1 setting you have now to the next one up (which may or may not be x1.33, which should notch your ram up to 533x2=1066MHz). That's the first thing to try.

Alternatively, you could push your FSB up to 533MHz if your board/NB can handle it (it's a good board so maybe) and drop your cpu multi to 7. That would increase your bandwidth a fair bit, and I would push your cpu harder anyway. If you're lucky you might get 533MHz FSB x 7.5= 4GHz with a bit of extra voltage, and have your RAM at the rated speeds You're upgrading soon anyway so I wouldn't worry too much about electromigration (more of an issue with the old wolfdale chips). If you're gonna breathe new life in then do it all the way

I'm sure our resident expert 8Pack will be along shortly to sort you out with infinitely better advice (and certainly more experience!) anyway!