I hate this board.

[5GigsOrBust]

Please read this carefully. Motherboard is a Gigabyte z390 Designare. Just got new Vengeance LPX 3600 ram. I verified this ram kit is compatible, per the motherboard QVL. I was also able to verify they are Samsung DDR4 modules. The ram runs fine at the normal XMP setting, the speed and timings are as advertised. No problems there.

 

However, when I try to increase the ram speed past 3600, the board immediately downclocks the ram to somewhere between 3200 - 3466. For example: if I select 3866mHz in bios, Task Manager shows the ram at 3866mHz; however cpu-z & HWinfo64 show the ram running at 3200 - 3466mHz. So I figured I would just run it at 3600 and tighten the timings a bit. Nope. No chance. If I try to run it at 3600 and tighten the timings, the board again downclocks the ram to 3200 or 3466, even though 3600 is set in bios!!

 

So basically, I can run the ram at 3600 XMP with the auto crap timings, but I can't get a single MHz more than 3600, and I can't decrease the latency by even a single tick, without the board either down-clocking the ram to 3466 or just plain-old refusing to boot. 

 

Now obviously, not being able to overclock the ram is just unacceptable. So I decided to do a bit of testing...

 

I popped the LPX into my second system with some cheap asrock itx board. And what do ya know? Like magic the LPX sticks run at 4000 no problem. So now I KNOW its the gigabyte board/bios that's causing this problem because the ram sticks are clearly good for 4000+ mHz.

 

For reference, my second system has a cheap asrock itx z390 board and even cheaper Chinese OLOy ram sticks. The second system's ram is rated for 2666mHz and it runs at 3700mHz in the asrock board. In the Designare, the OLOy ram sticks struggle to run over 3400.

 

So it appears that both cheap crap ram and decent ram both clock better on a cheap crap asrock itx board than on a high end gigabyte board. Interesting. Please excuse me while I look up Amazon's return policy...

 

 

So I guess my questions are:

1. Is this normal memory overclocking behavior on a gigabyte board? 

2. Did I just get unlucky with a set of crap LPX ram?

3. Anyone else have this issue with similar gigabyte boards?

4. What's going on?!

5. Should I put my foot through this board? (leaning towards yes on that one)

 

Both system specs below for reference:

Primary:                                                          Secondary:

Z390 Designare                                              Asrock Z390-itx/ac

9900k @ 5.1                                                    i7-8086k @ 5.2

Vengeance LPX 3600mHz C18                      OLOy DDR4-2666 C16 @ 3700 mHz                                                    

[Letgomyleghoe]

this might be the ram just not being able to oc anymore, so the motherboard trys to keep from making you pop out the cmos by downlocking it to safe setting. 

 

check your timings on the asrock 

[Grabhanem]

Gigabyte has a tendency to auto-switch BIOSes if your OC fails on their dual BIOS boards-- I think it can be disabled via a switch or jumper.

 

Regardless, I'd expect better memory OC out of an ITX board anyway, as having 1 slot per channel reduces electrical interference somewhat.

[5GigsOrBust]

3 minutes ago, Letgomyleghoe said:

this might be the ram just not being able to oc anymore, so the motherboard trys to keep from making you pop out the cmos by downlocking it to safe setting. 

 

check your timings on the asrock 

The auto timings on the asrock board are atrocious, but at least it boots at 4000. So I know the ram has some oc headroom

[5GigsOrBust]

6 minutes ago, Grabhanem said:

Gigabyte has a tendency to auto-switch BIOSes if your OC fails on their dual BIOS boards-- I think it can be disabled via a switch or jumper.

 

Regardless, I'd expect better memory OC out of an ITX board anyway, as having 1 slot per channel reduces electrical interference somewhat.

I thought that might play a part, but the asrock is literally the cheapest possible z390 board you can find. I really expected a high end board to do better, even with 4 ram slots. And don't even get me started on that dual bios crap, omg I hate it

[Letgomyleghoe]

5 minutes ago, 5GigsOrBust said:

The auto timings on the asrock board are atrocious, but at least it boots at 4000. So I know the ram has some oc headroom

yeah, but i bet you it runs worse at 4000mhz and those timings, its not that it doesnt OC on your other board, its that you are asking it to unreasonably overclock, youre not gonna get 4000mhz at the same timings

[5GigsOrBust]

1 hour ago, Letgomyleghoe said:

yeah, but i bet you it runs worse at 4000mhz and those timings, its not that it doesnt OC on your other board, its that you are asking it to unreasonably overclock, youre not gonna get 4000mhz at the same timings

I understand I wont get 4000 with the same timings. But I can't get 4000 at all on the gigabyte board, even with all timings and everything else on auto. Cant get anything over 3600. That makes no sense. Obviously  3600 isn't the absolute max speed of this kit if it does 4000 on a different board

[Grabhanem]

4 minutes ago, 5GigsOrBust said:

I understand I wont get 4000 with the same timings. But I can't get 4000 at all on the gigabyte board. Cant get anything over 3600. That makes no sense. Obviously  3600 isn't the absolute max speed of this kit if it does 4000 on a different board

Memory OC is weird. I had a Gigabyte B350 board that would do 3200 on my 3000 XMP kit all day long, but if you touched timings it would throw a fit. I got rid of it because the VRM struggled with CPU overclocking even on my very mediocre CPU and replaced it with an MSI ITX board, which would refuse to post at 3066 even with excessive voltage, but could do CL14-17-17 on my 16-20-20 kit without breaking a sweat.

[5GigsOrBust]

11 minutes ago, Grabhanem said:

Memory OC is weird. I had a Gigabyte B350 board that would do 3200 on my 3000 XMP kit all day long, but if you touched timings it would throw a fit. I got rid of it because the VRM struggled with CPU overclocking even on my very mediocre CPU and replaced it with an MSI ITX board, which would refuse to post at 3066 even with excessive voltage, but could do CL14-17-17 on my 16-20-20 kit without breaking a sweat.

Yeah, similar situation. Frustrating because I got this ram expecting it would have decent OC headroom, only to find out the board doesn't allow it. Apparently I shoulda just paid more for a kit with an XMP profile over 4000

[Guest]

1 hour ago, 5GigsOrBust said:

Yeah, similar situation. Frustrating because I got this ram expecting it would have decent OC headroom, only to find out the board doesn't allow it. Apparently I shoulda just paid more for a kit with an XMP profile over 4000

Man, the only memory to get for Intel is high speed B-Die. 

 

This set on muh 8700K will do 4000mhz on it's XMP timings with a healthy volt bump. 

This kit when released until earlier this year pretty much was, over 200 bucks. 

[5GigsOrBust]

1 hour ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Man, the only memory to get for Intel is high speed B-Die. 

 

This set on muh 8700K will do 4000mhz on it's XMP timings with a healthy volt bump. 

This kit when released until earlier this year pretty much was, over 200 bucks. 

How do you ensure you're buying B-die? I was able to determine that they are Samsung modules, but no way to tell if its B-die

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, 5GigsOrBust said:

How do you ensure you're buying B-die? I was able to determine that they are Samsung modules, but no way to tell if its B-die

That kit is the exact same kit I have and it's B-die. You can tell by the 16-16-16-36 timings at 1.35v. 3600mhz or CL15 at 3600mhz is also B-die. CL14 at 3200mhz is generally B-Die.

 

Or you can use this B-die finder which lists Most B-die, just not all of it. https://benzhaomin.github.io/bdiefinder/