RAM for new rig - 1600 or 1866?

[shaank]

Help


I've just put together a new rig courtesy of ocuk However I need to do something about the RAM.


The specs:

Intel core i5 2500k
Asus P8Z68V mobo
520w Corsair Modular PSU
antec case - I forget the model number
ATI 5850 (overclocked) GPU
Creative Labs Xi-Fi gamer audio
OCZ vertex 2E 60Gb SSD
Antec 620 Water cooler for cpu.

And currently this rig is sporting some second hand OCZ Spec Ops DDR3 ram, specced at 1600Mhz, but only runs at 1333Mhz on this mobo and seems to be causing some instability when overclocking the rig. On stock it's perfectly fine, as soon as the ASUS overclocking utility changes the RAM speed to anything higher than 1333 (even 1373) it starts getting memory management blue screens of death etc. Annoying.

So - first up, if there is a fix / way round this, please do let me know.

Secondly, I think I'm after new RAM for this and am unsure between the following:


Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-15000C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1866C9)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-292-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1387

and this:

Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C8)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-295-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517



Cheers!

 

[Surveyor]

If the Asus utility is changing the RAM to something like 1373MHz then it's messing around with the Base Clock which you shouldn't do with Sandy Bridge.

It looks like the Base Clock is being changed from 100 to 103MHz.

The best way to see if your existing RAM will work at 1600MHz is to change the settings manually in the BIOS.

In the BIOS set the RAM speed to 1600MHz and set the timings and voltage manually according to the specifications on the sticks.

Remember you need to keep the DRAM voltage as low as possible and the lower you can get it towards 1.5V the better.

Don't run the overclocking utility at the same time as you're manually making changes in the BIOS.

If you do buy any new RAM then any of the 1600MHz 8GB kits at OcUK for around £45-£50 will be fine.

1600MHz is all you need for Sandy Bridge. See here.

The lower profile RAM, like Corsair XMS3 or Kingston HyperX, has better compatability with large CPU coolers.

 

[shaank]

Thanks for the info Surveyor.

The current clock is indeed 103 x 44 - this is what the Asus tool auto clocked the rig to however, and as part of that it has jumped the ram up.

Interestingly enough, after reading the article you posted, I've hard coded the overclock into the bios rather than using the windows based tool, and it seems much more stable.. most odd.

I'll keep reading up on all of this

 

[Hagar]

Except for AMD Llano, I think the sweet spot is 12800 1600MHz. I would not buy less and cannot see the value in higher ram unless the IGP can utilise it properly

 

[shaank]

Ok - bought up some 1600Mhz gear from ocuk, will try it out tomorrow when it arrives.

Hopefully that will stop these bsod's due to memory management issues :s