Skylake + DDR3 voltage confusion

[p377y7h33f]

well, i don't know who to believe...

 

Intel warns, and then reminds that using 1.5v and especially 1.65v DDR3 in a DDR3L Z170 motherboards(all 4 of them!) will damage the CPU. a lot of sites and articles confirm that, yet EVERY manufacturer lists 1.5v AND 1.65v DDR3 in their QVL's for all these boards.

 

many people ask the question why bother with DDR3+Skylake. the answer should be obvious - to save money. if i'm making the move from Bloomfield! to Skylake at the cost of CPU and a $100 mobo ONLY - why the hell not! by the time i pull the trigger Kaby Lake will probably be out, and hopefully one or two DDR3 boards will be made on the intel's 200 chipset, hopefully with SLI this time.

 

anyway, since my x58 is triple channel, i will be carrying over a 12GB Mushkin Redline 1866 kit that runs at 1.5v, and would just like the peace of mind that it this combination won't be eating away at a Skylake/Kaby Lake CPU. Asus and Gigabyte customer service all assured me that there are safety measures on the board that wouldn't allow the extra voltage to damage the CPU, or its IMC. so was this the usual intel BS trying to force people into DDR4 with those voltage warnings? in the beginning all DDR3 over 1.5v was labeled risky for first gen cpu's and look what happened with 1.65v becoming the standard for good DDR3 - nothing. so is this the same story? 

[79wjd]

Don't expect the 200 chipset to support DDR3 because it won't. 

 

I vaguely remember reading reports of people having issues with DDR3, so I would be reluctant. 

[Coaxialgamer]

3 minutes ago, p377y7h33f said:

well, i don't know who to believe...

 

Intel warns, and then reminds that using 1.5v and especially 1.65v DDR3 in a DDR3L Z170 motherboards(all 4 of them!) will damage the CPU. a lot of sites and articles confirm that, yet EVERY manufacturer list 1.5v AND 1.65v DDR3 in their QVL's for all these boards.

 

many people ask the question why bother. the answer should be obvious - to save money. if i'm making the move from Bloomfield! to Skylake at the cost CPU and a $100 mobo ONLY - why the hell not! by the time i pull the trigger Kaby Lake will probably be out, and hopefully one or two DDR3 boards will be made on the intel's 200 chipset, hopefully with SLI this time.

 

anyway, since my x58 is triple channel, i will be carrying over a 12GB Mushkin Redline 1866 kit that runs at 1.5v, and would just like the peace of mind that it this combination won't be eating away at a Skylake/Kaby Lake CPU. Asus and Gigabyte customer service all assured me that there are safety measures on the board that wouldn't allow the extra voltage to damage the CPU, or its IMC. so was this the usual intel BS trying to force people into DDR4 with those voltage warnings? in the beginning all DDR3 over 1.5v was labeled risky for first gen cpu's and look what happened with 1.65v becoming the standard for good DDR3 - nothing. so is this the same story? 

no , pretty sure ddr3 would damage the IMC.

 

The reason manufacturers list it as COMPATIBLE is because it physically FITS , but that is not a garantee of any kind .

[Hackentosher]

Skylake's uses ddr4 but has backwards compatibility with ddr3. Best just to get a normal board that takes ddr4.

[79wjd]

3 minutes ago, Coaxialgamer said:

no , pretty sure ddr3 would damage the IMC.

 

The reason manufacturers list it as COMPATIBLE is because it physically FITS , but that is not a garantee of any kind .

A QVL is supposed to be for validated hardware. 

[MageTank]

Just now, p377y7h33f said:

well, i don't know who to believe...

 

Intel warns, and then reminds that using 1.5v and especially 1.65v DDR3 in a DDR3L Z170 motherboards(all 4 of them!) will damage the CPU. a lot of sites and articles confirm that, yet EVERY manufacturer list 1.5v AND 1.65v DDR3 in their QVL's for all these boards.

 

many people ask the question why bother. the answer should be obvious - to save money. if i'm making the move from Bloomfield! to Skylake at the cost CPU and a $100 mobo ONLY - why the hell not! by the time i pull the trigger Kaby Lake will probably be out, and hopefully one or two DDR3 boards will be made on the intel's 200 chipset, hopefully with SLI this time.

 

anyway, since my x58 is triple channel, i will be carrying over a 12GB Mushkin Redline 1866 kit that runs at 1.5v, and would just like the peace of mind that it this combination won't be eating away at a Skylake/Kaby Lake CPU. Asus and Gigabyte customer service all assured me that there are safety measures on the board that wouldn't allow the extra voltage to damage the CPU, or its IMC. so was this the usual intel BS trying to force people into DDR4 with those voltage warnings? in the beginning all DDR3 over 1.5v was labeled risky for first gen cpu's and look what happened with 1.65v becoming the standard for good DDR3 - nothing. so is this the same story? 

I will try to make this very simple for you. Intel, in their warning, did not mean VDIMM. They meant VCCIO/VCCSA voltages are dangerous for your IMC. After all, VDIMM is supplied from the board to the ram, and does not come into contact with the CPU at all. VCCIO is the voltage for the electrical paths into and out of the IMC, and VCCSA  (System Agent) voltage is the IMC and PCIE sub domain voltage. These two are the dangerous voltages for your IMC. The problem is, when you load XMP profiles for 1.5 or 1.65v, they tend to automatically raise those two voltage values higher than what is considered safe. This can cause damage to your IMC, and degrade/kill it over time.

 

The reason tech reviewers do not convey this message is quite simple. None of them know what they are talking about. They just repeat what one misinformed person says, and they all roll with it. None of them spotted the obvious mistake, even though I and several other overclockers have repeatedly tried to point it out. Even Intel clarified in an interview that it's the way the boards read the SPD (Serial Presence Detect) on the ram itself.

 

Any who, ignore anyone else that says DDR3 is dangerous for Skylake. They don't know what they are talking about. As long as you manually input safe VCCIO/SA voltages (Anything under 1.25v is safe 24/7, but I would remain under 1.15v just to be extra safe) you will not have a problem. @Lays would be the first person on this forum to tell you if VDIMM kills IMC's. The dude is pushing 1.8v on Skylake as we speak.

[Coaxialgamer]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

A QVL is supposed to be for validated hardware. 

didn't know that. But , intel still does state the IMC was not designed for 1.5v + , not to mention 1.65v

[p377y7h33f]

i am in love with this forum already. will just sit on the sidelines for now...

[MageTank]

9 minutes ago, p377y7h33f said:

well, i don't know who to believe...

 

Intel warns, and then reminds that using 1.5v and especially 1.65v DDR3 in a DDR3L Z170 motherboards(all 4 of them!) will damage the CPU. a lot of sites and articles confirm that, yet EVERY manufacturer list 1.5v AND 1.65v DDR3 in their QVL's for all these boards.

 

many people ask the question why bother with DDR3+Skylake. the answer should be obvious - to save money. if i'm making the move from Bloomfield! to Skylake at the cost CPU and a $100 mobo ONLY - why the hell not! by the time i pull the trigger Kaby Lake will probably be out, and hopefully one or two DDR3 boards will be made on the intel's 200 chipset, hopefully with SLI this time.

 

anyway, since my x58 is triple channel, i will be carrying over a 12GB Mushkin Redline 1866 kit that runs at 1.5v, and would just like the peace of mind that it this combination won't be eating away at a Skylake/Kaby Lake CPU. Asus and Gigabyte customer service all assured me that there are safety measures on the board that wouldn't allow the extra voltage to damage the CPU, or its IMC. so was this the usual intel BS trying to force people into DDR4 with those voltage warnings? in the beginning all DDR3 over 1.5v was labeled risky for first gen cpu's and look what happened with 1.65v becoming the standard for good DDR3 - nothing. so is this the same story? 

I also want to add that staying with DDR3 is a bad idea in the long run. Everything is going to be DDR4 very soon. X99 is already DDR4, Z170 is DDR4, even Zen is launching with DDR4 support. DDR4, when you buy a decent kit (or manually overclock) is better in absolutely every aspect over DDR3. Even latency. It is also not much more expensive, costing $4 more for a 16gb DDR4 kit over a 16gb DDR3 kit. I know it sucks having to buy new ram when you already have a perfectly good kit of ram lying about, but look at it from this perspective. You already have your old board and CPU. Why not keep it paired with its original ram, and make a spare PC out of it, or sell it as a bundle? Unless some of your old hardware has died, then in any case, try to invest in newer hardware standards that will carry over to future hardware. 

[p377y7h33f]

7 minutes ago, MageTank said:

I also want to add that staying with DDR3 is a bad idea in the long run. Everything is going to be DDR4 very soon. X99 is already DDR4, Z170 is DDR4, even Zen is launching with DDR4 support. DDR4, when you buy a decent kit (or manually overclock) is better in absolutely every aspect over DDR3. Even latency. It is also not much more expensive, costing $4 more for a 16gb DDR4 kit over a 16gb DDR3 kit. I know it sucks having to buy new ram when you already have a perfectly good kit of ram lying about, but look at it from this perspective. You already have your old board and CPU. Why not keep it paired with its original ram, and make a spare PC out of it, or sell it as a bundle? Unless some of your old hardware has died, then in any case, try to invest in newer hardware standards that will carry over to future hardware. 

the real reason is that i need to go to 12GB on my X58, which currently has 6GB of Corsair XMS3 1600 at 7-7-7-20. i decided no to go with 6 sticks to get to 12GB, to avoid jacking up the QPI/VTT to 1.4v or beyond to be able to run all 6 at 1600MHz. the i-950 is already at 4.0GHz(200 BCLK x 20). plus, it's almost impossible to find the exact same XMS3 7-7-7-20 kit with the same part number and version number as mine. the Mushkins 4GB x 3 are on the way and i plan to run them at 2000MHz(200BCLK x 10) hopefully without the need to raise QPI/VTT, which is currently at 1.3625v. also, i know i can sell the XMS3 kit for almost as much as i paid for the Mushkins(cheap, but still). i am definitely not doing a 14nm build from scratch. the wife has her laptop, and the rest of my components are too good to leave behind.

 

and the sudden need to get to 12GB is to try and squeeze a few more frames out of... you guessed it - The Division. i was seeing 40 FPS in the beta in the Dark Zone and my GPU wasn't even hitting 30% load. they recommend at least 8GB of RAM so it might help. there.

[p377y7h33f]

41 minutes ago, MageTank said:

I will try to make this very simple for you. Intel, in their warning, did not mean VDIMM. They meant VCCIO/VCCSA voltages are dangerous for your IMC. After all, VDIMM is supplied from the board to the ram, and does not come into contact with the CPU at all. VCCIO is the voltage for the electrical paths into and out of the IMC, and VCCSA  (System Agent) voltage is the IMC and PCIE sub domain voltage. These two are the dangerous voltages for your IMC. The problem is, when you load XMP profiles for 1.5 or 1.65v, they tend to automatically raise those two voltage values higher than what is considered safe. This can cause damage to your IMC, and degrade/kill it over time.

 

The reason tech reviewers do not convey this message is quite simple. None of them know what they are talking about. They just repeat what one misinformed person says, and they all roll with it. None of them spotted the obvious mistake, even though I and several other overclockers have repeatedly tried to point it out. Even Intel clarified in an interview that it's the way the boards read the SPD (Serial Presence Detect) on the ram itself.

 

Any who, ignore anyone else that says DDR3 is dangerous for Skylake. They don't know what they are talking about. As long as you manually input safe VCCIO/SA voltages (Anything under 1.25v is safe 24/7, but I would remain under 1.15v just to be extra safe) you will not have a problem. @Lays would be the first person on this forum to tell you if VDIMM kills IMC's. The dude is pushing 1.8v on Skylake as we speak.

very informative post. i really appreciate it! will revisit this when i actually pick up a Z170 and a 6700k. wish i had more options though. the Asus boards don't even have the 5 basic audio jacks, the Biostar is an H170, so my two real choices are either a Gigabyte or an Asrock. we'll see. again, BIG thank you!

[MageTank]

Just now, p377y7h33f said:

very informative post. i really appreciate it! will revisit this when i actually pick up a Z170 and a 6700k. wish i had more options though. the Asus boards don't even have the 5 basic audio jacks, the Biostar is an H170, so my two real choices are either a Gigabyte or an Asrock. we'll see. again, BIG thank you!

Not a problem, glad I could help. Good luck on your build BTW.