I added more ram and can’t overclock it

[roguezxro]

So I added more ram and it runs fine when at 2100mhz but when I overclock it to 3200mhz which is how I ran my computer when at 16gb ram. Pc wont start when at 3200mhz.

[YoungBlade]

What are your other components? Particularly the CPU and motherboard?

 

Running 4 sticks is harder for the memory controller than 2 sticks, so you likely won't be able to achieve the same overclock.

[roguezxro]

[bal723]

20 minutes ago, roguezxro said:

So I added more ram and it runs fine when at 2100mhz but when I overclock it to 3200mhz which is how I ran my computer when at 16gb ram. Pc wont start when at 3200mhz.

are they both same freq from the factory?

[roguezxro]

2 minutes ago, bal723 said:

are they both same freq from the factory?

yeah

[bal723]

Just now, roguezxro said:

yeah

maybe that guy was right, running it at 3200mhz on all 4 sticks may be hard for imc

[roguezxro]

I’m running memtest on them but I think its like @YoungBlade said. I might not be able to achieve the same overclock with 4 sticks.

[YoungBlade]

With an i7 8700K, DDR4-3200 is technically an overclock of the memory controller. The CPU is only rated for DDR4-2666.

 

8700K CPUs that can't handle 4 sticks at 3200 are rare, but they do exist.

 

If you enable XMP, then manually set the frequency to DDR4-2666, does it work?

[bal723]

could yuu tell how upgrade from 16gb to 32gb feels like? i was planning on doing that upgrade too

[roguezxro]

3 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

With an i7 8700K, DDR4-3200 is technically an overclock of the memory controller. The CPU is only rated for DDR4-2666.

 

8700K CPUs that can't handle 4 sticks at 3200 are rare, but they do exist.

 

If you enable XMP, then manually set the frequency to DDR4-2666, does it work?

I will definitely try 

[roguezxro]

17 minutes ago, bal723 said:

could yuu tell how upgrade from 16gb to 32gb feels like? i was planning on doing that upgrade too

Having a bunch of tabs open feels more smooth.

[GuiltySpark_]

1 hour ago, roguezxro said:

Having a bunch of tabs open feels more smooth.

Unless you were out of RAM and swapping heavily to begin with, this is a placebo. Adding RAM isn't going to really improve much unless you're running out of it. 

 

Just sitting at the desktop with a browser open, you weren't running out of RAM (unless you had a ton of other stuff open we don't know about)

[roguezxro]

10 hours ago, YoungBlade said:

With an i7 8700K, DDR4-3200 is technically an overclock of the memory controller. The CPU is only rated for DDR4-2666.

 

8700K CPUs that can't handle 4 sticks at 3200 are rare, but they do exist.

 

If you enable XMP, then manually set the frequency to DDR4-2666, does it work?

I ran it on 2666mhz and after a few minutes it crashed. Also my cpu is at stock speed. What speed you recommend for stock speed  of 3.7mhz? I also did the memory test and they all passed. It took a whole 5 hours. I’m currently running it at 2600mhz with no problems so far.

[YoungBlade]

8 hours ago, roguezxro said:

I ran it on 2666mhz and after a few minutes it crashed. Also my cpu is at stock speed. What speed you recommend for stock speed  of 3.7mhz? I also did the memory test and they all passed. It took a whole 5 hours. I’m currently running it at 2600mhz with no problems so far.

The 8700K is rated to be able to run RAM at DDR4-2666 speed, so it should have worked. Theoretically, there could be silicon degradation happening with the IMC after 6 years of use, but it would be unlikely.

 

To be clear, the way you set it to DDR4-2666 is that you enabled XMP and then manually turned the speed down?

 

That first step is important, as it will increase the voltage sent to the RAM - which is needed to stabilize the higher frequency.

 

If you did do it that way, then my recommendation is to just run it at as high of a frequency as you can. If that's DDR4-2600, then that's unfortunate, but it won't my a difference vs DDR4-2666. But my original hope had been that 2666 would work and you could have tried 2800, 2933, 3133, etc to see how close you could get to the full 3200.

 

You could also look at increasing the voltage to the IMC to try to stabilize things, however this comes with some risk, as increasing voltages too much will damage the silicon.

[freeagent]

18 hours ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

Unless you were out of RAM and swapping heavily to begin with, this is a placebo

I think he just noticed what it was like to run a dual rank setup. It is smoother.

[Motifator]

36 minutes ago, freeagent said:

I think he just noticed what it was like to run a dual rank setup. It is smoother.

Eh, I don't think this matters THAT much at all. Especially given the age and the performance of this machine in particular...

[freeagent]

57 minutes ago, Motifator said:

Eh, I don't think this matters THAT much at all. Especially given the age and the performance of this machine in particular...

Maybe. Just looking back to my Z77 build.