Gigabyte Aorus Elite z690 ddr4 Does not work with my XMP Ram

[Super panda]

Hey,

So I recently upgraded from Z490 Asus z490  Apex XII with 2x8 GB DDR4 4800MHZ cl19 (G.Skills trident z loyal) and i9 10900K to i9 12900KS with Z690 Gigabyte aorus Elite ddr4 and my XMP does not work at all ! I updated my bios to the latest version 7FB and stil no luck with the xmp. I understand that 4800 Mhz is quite a high speed for ddr4 but on my older Z490 platform it was working just fine so I was expecting to hit at least 4000+ mhz on this motherboard but I guess not. Even setting the timings, speed and Dram voltage manually doesn't work. I also don't see the options like VCCSIO on this motherboard. The highest speed I could achieve with this motherboard was 2700 mhz with 1.35v. So is there any way to achieve a higher speed ? or Should I just return this motherboard and go with a better one ?

Suggestions and idea's are welcome !

Thanks

[RONOTHAN##]

First off, you're comparing quite literally the best Z490 board for memory overclocking to the worst Z690 board for memory overclocking. I'd be very surprised if this did work, especially out of the box at XMP. Plus this would require that you get a good memory controller which is not a guarantee on Intel hardware. 

 

Second, are you trying to get these speeds in Gear 1 or Gear 2? Gear 2 is where this does have a shot of happening, so make sure that's where you're trying to enable this. 

 

Third, I'd be very surprised if you don't have options for VCCSA and VCCIO voltages on that board. It is a Gigabyte board so they will put them in weird spots (it's been a while since I've used an Intel Gigabyte board so I don't remember where in the BIOS they were), but they should be there. 

[Super panda]

Just now, RONOTHAN## said:

First off, you're comparing quite literally the best Z490 board for memory overclocking to the worst Z690 board for memory overclocking. I'd be very surprised if this did work, especially out of the box at XMP. Plus this would require that you get a good memory controller which is not a guarantee on Intel hardware. 

 

Second, are you trying to get these speeds in Gear 1 or Gear 2? Gear 2 is where this does have a shot of happening, so make sure that's where you're trying to enable this. 

 

Third, I'd be very surprised if you don't have options for VCCSA and VCCIO voltages on that board. It is a Gigabyte board so they will put them in weird spots (it's been a while since I've used an Intel Gigabyte board so I don't remember where in the BIOS they were), but they should be there. 

I just found the VCCSA option in the bios and set it to 1.3v and with 1.35v dram voltage I could finally boot into windows. This is the first time I'm using a Gigabyte motherboard (and probably the last time) so it's all very new to me. What are Gear 1 and Gear 2 doing exacly ? It wasn't on Z490 before. Right now I'm on Gear 1. I understand this is not the best motherboard for memory overclocking but even then I was still hoping to get around 4000mhz

[RONOTHAN##]

15 minutes ago, Super panda said:

What are Gear 1 and Gear 2 doing exacly ? It wasn't on Z490 before.

Gear 1 is the default. Gear 2 has the memory controller run at half speed. Gear 2 introduces a fair bit of latency, but at the same time it dramatically increases the maximum memory clock and memory bandwidth you can expect to achieve. All the max memory frequency runs on 11th gen (where Gear 2 was introduced) were done on Gear 2.

 

Gear 2 isn't perfect though, when you have the frequency cranked high enough you get issues where the board won't train memory reliably, so one boot it can be completely stable, the next it will blue screen. 4800MHz is about the point where that can start to happen IIRC, though since the timings of XMP on that kit aren't exactly that aggressive I would be surprised if you run into that issue. 

 

16 minutes ago, Super panda said:

I understand this is not the best motherboard for memory overclocking but even then I was still hoping to get around 4000mhz

It's not just not the best, it is straight up the worst. Gigabyte's memory topology on DDR4 LGA 1700 boards is just terrible, 3600MHz in gear 1 can be hit or miss with a decent CPU. In Gear 2 you should be able to get 4400MHz+ without too much of a fight though. 

[Super panda]

3 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Gear 1 is the default. Gear 2 has the memory controller run at half speed. Gear 2 introduces a fair bit of latency, but at the same time it dramatically increases the maximum memory clock and memory bandwidth you can expect to achieve. All the max memory frequency runs on 11th gen (where Gear 2 was introduced) were done on Gear 2.

 

Gear 2 isn't perfect though, when you have the frequency cranked high enough you get issues where the board won't train memory reliably, so one boot it can be completely stable, the next it will blue screen. 4800MHz is about the point where that can start to happen IIRC, though since the timings of XMP on that kit aren't exactly that aggressive I would be surprised if you run into that issue. 

 

It's not just not the best, it is straight up the worst. Gigabyte's memory topology on DDR4 LGA 1700 boards is just terrible, 3600MHz in gear 1 can be hit or miss with a decent CPU. In Gear 2 you should be able to get 4400MHz+ without too much of a fight though. 

I see, thanks for the explanations about gear 1 and gear 2. Right now I have i9 12900ks with 16gb 4800mhz ddr4 and the only bottelneck is my motherboard. I'm thinking about returning this motherboard. Which z690 motherboard would you recommend that can handle high speed ram ? Even on gear 2 I can't get the 3200mhz stable atm

[RONOTHAN##]

14 minutes ago, Super panda said:

Even on gear 2 I can't get the 3200mhz stable atm

That is weird, that board is bad at memory overclocking, but it shouldn't be that bad. Either that particular BIOS revision is broken (this does happen from time to time) or you got a faulty motherboard. Check a couple different BIOS revisions before you go through the effort of pulling the board and getting a new one. 

 

If you do need to get a new board, ASUS probably has the best DDR4 memory topology with MSI being a very close second. I'd probably go for an MSI board since they're a fair bit cheaper than their ASUS competitors and the memory overclocking is still really solid. The Z690-A Pro is a solid option, it's basically everything you need from a motherboard, the VRM is very solid and it's got a lot of features. If you need something a bit more aesthetically pleasing the Tomahawk or Gaming Edge are also very solid options, they're just basically the same board as the Z690-A Pro with slightly better VRMs (still overkill), better audio chipset, more M.2 heatsinks, and more RGB. 

[A1200]

I run that board with DDR4 4000 C18 and its fine (nothing tweaked just XMP enabled) 

 

[Super panda]

On 9/21/2022 at 3:28 PM, A1200 said:

I run that board with DDR4 4000 C18 and its fine (nothing tweaked just XMP enabled) 

 

I got a bad board I guess