What is the worst that can happen when OC memory??

[BlazerBuddy]

I am going to OC my memory, but I was thinking, what is the worst thing that can happen when OC memory. Can it destroy cpu, gpu, mb, or the actual memory itself??? Or is the worst thing that can happen just resetting cmos???

[Light-Yagami]

The worst that can happen is that is doesn't boot with settings applied.

2nd worst - it makes mistakes while the system is running, causing random bsod.

3rd worst - it applies and works properly, but then just dies one day (if you push like.. 1.6v through it or something)

 

Make small changes, run memory test, repeat. You'll get the most of it by tightening the timings. Pretty hard to do if you don't know what you're doing, so make sure you're well informed.

[Escapenz]

Small steps are key and possible read up on what voltages are safe for your kit of ram (also what kind of OC people have gotten)

[Vishera]

The worst that can happen is that you kill some DRAM modules (be careful with the voltage)

[Mateyyy]

At worst it'll be unstable enough for you to need to clear the CMOS.

At super worst you'll kill it, but unless you shove 1.8V into your RAM and run it 24/7, that's pretty unlikely.

[gloop]

I’m going to assume you don’t have Bdie, so the max you should run your ram 24/7 is 1.45v, and I’d be sticking around 1.43. 

[BlazerBuddy]

Alright thx everyone, I will look more into OC ram.

[porina]

In theory you could damage ram or IMC with excessive voltage, but I don't know of anyone actually doing so, even running elevated voltages for a long time.

 

In practice, the worse case is data corruption. Compared to CPU overclocking, if that is unstable it is more likely to crash. Unstable ram could have bad data going through your system, and if that data impacts your storage device, that can get corrupted. It is a known risk in the competitive overclocking area that ram overclocking in particular can break your OS install. The errors can be more subtle which makes detecting them much more difficult, until something explodes anyway. As such, competitive overclockers would have a separate OS install to use during this step, and not reuse their regular use install.