Why is it that hard for adjusting RAM speed?

[Gat Pelsinger]

We all know how easy it is for adjusting the clock speed for the CPU. There are many softwares which can get the job done and even your BIOS can do that, and it can set the clock speed at whatever level you want. Same goes for the GPU clock speed but it is a bit more locked than the CPU clock speed. But why is it that there is only a stable pre-fixed speed for any type of memory like RAM and the VRAM? You can't change the clock speed of those whenever you want (like in the middle on runtime of system) and you can't change it at whatever speed you like. Why is that so?

 

EDIT: ok, maybe VRAM can be changed in middle of runtime but thats it.

[PDifolco]

9 minutes ago, NvidiaFirePro6900XXTX3DPRO said:

We all know how easy it is for adjusting the clock speed for the CPU. There are many softwares which can get the job done and even your BIOS can do that, and it can set the clock speed at whatever level you want. Same goes for the GPU clock speed but it is a bit more locked than the CPU clock speed. But why is it that there is only a stable pre-fixed speed for any type of memory like RAM and the VRAM? You can't change the clock speed of those whenever you want (like in the middle on runtime of system) and you can't change it at whatever speed you like. Why is that so?

 

EDIT: ok, maybe VRAM can be changed in middle of runtime but thats it.

Huh ? I can change my RAM clock and all and every timing and subtiming in BIOS

It's pretty complicated and prone to crash the PC tho, it's not as simple as OCing the CPU

[Gat Pelsinger]

25 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

Huh ? I can change my RAM clock and all and every timing and subtiming in BIOS

It's pretty complicated and prone to crash the PC tho, it's not as simple as OCing the CPU

But I mean that you can't change it as freely as CPU clock speed like, you can't change RAM clock and timings when PC is running and you can't change the values as vigorously as CPU

[Guest]

Isn't there a program called memtweakit that lets you adjust timings when the system is running? 

[PDifolco]

12 minutes ago, Glenn-Tidbury said:

Isn't there a program called memtweakit that lets you adjust timings when the system is running? 

Only on ASUS boards...

[Blue4130]

25 minutes ago, NvidiaFirePro6900XXTX3DPRO said:

But I mean that you can't change it as freely as CPU clock speed like, you can't change RAM clock and timings when PC is running and you can't change the values as vigorously as CPU

If you have AMD, use Ryzen Master. It lets you do that in Windows and I am pretty sure it is on the fly more or less.

[aDoomGuy]

8 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

If you have AMD, use Ryzen Master. It lets you do that in Windows and I am pretty sure it is on the fly more or less.

I believe it needs to reboot and set settings in BIOS. Don't quote me on it though.

 

@NvidiaFirePro6900XXTX3DPRO Why do you need to change RAM speed in the OS? Just set it in BIOS and forget it if you are stable.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

For ddr2 and older theres memset

 

For anything else its just mobo manufacturer specific software that can tune the rams

 

Usually only the timings though, if you wanna screw with freq then youll just raise the bclk but seems pretty pointless to not set the ram at a fixed speed since they dont really consume much power in the first place

[Applefreak]

1 hour ago, NvidiaFirePro6900XXTX3DPRO said:

We all know how easy it is for adjusting the clock speed for the CPU. There are many softwares which can get the job done and even your BIOS can do that, and it can set the clock speed at whatever level you want. Same goes for the GPU clock speed but it is a bit more locked than the CPU clock speed. But why is it that there is only a stable pre-fixed speed for any type of memory like RAM and the VRAM? You can't change the clock speed of those whenever you want (like in the middle on runtime of system) and you can't change it at whatever speed you like. Why is that so?

 

EDIT: ok, maybe VRAM can be changed in middle of runtime but thats it.

RAM can be changed very easily and in the past there were no set speeds or XMP, DOCP etc. You had to manually set speeds and timings yourself to perform well. 

RAM is very delicate and and you cannot just tinker around without knowing what you do.

The way I explain it is: RAM is like a Dresser, you can increase the speed at which you open it but if careless it will jam and break. The internal volume and size of the drawers does not change nor do the size of your hands. So in order to make use of faster loading, you need to work harder to fill it at the same time. Meaning there has to be a balance between RAM, CPU and the Buses on the Motherboard. While your CPU may simply shutdown and refuse to work without resetting CMOS, the memory may actually brick and or melt (messing with voltages). 

At a certain point, the benefit of increasing clock speeds gets choked by available bus-speed and bandwidth. That is why we need to improve the backend first, hence the different iterations of SD-RAM.