What voltage is my RAM running at?

[noisebomb44]

Hello. I've been trying to figure out if my RAM sticks, (HyperX Fury DDR3 1600MHz 8GB Black) which are supposed to run at anything between 1.35V to 1.5V are actually running at 1.35V, and there is a lot of conflicting information in my BIOS, and programs such as open hardware monitor can't show the memory voltage. The reason for wanting to do this is because im running skylake on a DDR3 board.

 

It says 1.35 V in Advanced Voltage Settings menu (nothing can be changed)

 

But, it says 1.5V on the information menu (yes, the UI is a bit different, that is because I tried upgrading the BIOS, but the settings on both are identical (because I can't change the voltage))

 

Does this mean that my RAM is running at 1.5 V or 1.35V?

 

Mobo: GA-H170-HD3 DDR3

RAM: HyperX Fury DDR3 1600MHz 8GB Black

[DocSwag]

Probably 1.5, you can always check in windows with something like CPU z

[noisebomb44]

24 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

Probably 1.5, you can always check in windows with something like CPU z

Nope doesn't display the voltage for whatever reason

[DocSwag]

5 minutes ago, noisebomb44 said:

Nope doesn't display the voltage for whatever reason

Try using something like hwmonitor and see if there are any that say 1.35 or 1.5 v

[noisebomb44]

1 hour ago, DocSwag said:

Try using something like hwmonitor and see if there are any that say 1.35 or 1.5 v

Nope, it only shows the voltage of some motherboard stuff, which goes above 1.5V. Maybe I should buy some 1.35V only ram, just if it is running on 1.5V. Although the computer has been like this for a few months now, hopefully not too much damage has been done if it is running at 1.5V.

[DocSwag]

5 minutes ago, noisebomb44 said:

Nope, it only shows the voltage of some motherboard stuff, which goes above 1.5V. Maybe I should buy some 1.35V only ram, just if it is running on 1.5V. Although the computer has been like this for a few months now, hopefully not too much damage has been done if it is running at 1.5V.

I think it should be ok at 1.5v, 1.5 doesn't gow through IMC just through mobo and I presume mobo is meant to handle 1.5

[noisebomb44]

1 minute ago, DocSwag said:

I think it should be ok at 1.5v, 1.5 doesn't gow through IMC just through mobo and I presume mobo is meant to handle 1.5

Really? Because according to intel.

"1.5V memory voltage can damage integrated memory controller of the central processing unit"

Maybe im kind of overreacting about the damage, but it does seem like it goes through and will damage the IMC. Im pretty sure the motherboard is build to handle 1.5V, but I can't find any info on it.

[DocSwag]

1 hour ago, noisebomb44 said:

Really? Because according to intel.

"1.5V memory voltage can damage integrated memory controller of the central processing unit"

Maybe im kind of overreacting about the damage, but it does seem like it goes through and will damage the IMC. Im pretty sure the motherboard is build to handle 1.5V, but I can't find any info on it.

Intel is wrong about that, the 1.5v is supplied by the memory VRM on the motherboard and doesn't have anything to do with the CPU. VCCSA and VCCIO are what really go through the IMC. Probably just there as a sort of thing to protect themselves.

 

Worse case scenario is you kill your mobo, but I doubt that will happen since the mobo is a ddr3 board.

 

EDIT: Perhaps @MageTank could add something on, as I believe they are more familiar with this.

[MageTank]

1 hour ago, DocSwag said:

Intel is wrong about that, the 1.5v is supplied by the memory VRM on the motherboard and doesn't have anything to do with the CPU. VCCSA and VCCIO are what really go through the IMC. Probably just there as a sort of thing to protect themselves.

 

Worse case scenario is you kill your mobo, but I doubt that will happen since the mobo is a ddr3 board.

 

EDIT: Perhaps @MageTank could add something on, as I believe they are more familiar with this.

This is exactly correct. To add to this, G Skill and Corsair are both launching DDR4 4600mhz kits that have 1.5v VDIMM as their XMP voltages. Their engineers test these kits for months on end, non-stop under constant stress. If VDIMM was harmful to the IMC, they would not be launching those products. I've personally been running 1.45v 24/7 for the past 3 months now, and I have a rig behind me running 1.65v DDR3 on a cheapo ASUS Z170 board since February. It's still alive and kicking. 

 

2 hours ago, noisebomb44 said:

Really? Because according to intel.

"1.5V memory voltage can damage integrated memory controller of the central processing unit"

Maybe im kind of overreacting about the damage, but it does seem like it goes through and will damage the IMC. Im pretty sure the motherboard is build to handle 1.5V, but I can't find any info on it.

If you have time to read one of my famous rants, I go into greater detail about this situation:

Also, in that kitguru source of yours, it appears someone in the comment section agrees with my statements:

Come to think of it.. the name Pelco. Is that you @Lays?!

[DocSwag]

18 hours ago, MageTank said:

This is exactly correct. To add to this, G Skill and Corsair are both launching DDR4 4600mhz kits that have 1.5v VDIMM as their XMP voltages. Their engineers test these kits for months on end, non-stop under constant stress. If VDIMM was harmful to the IMC, they would not be launching those products. I've personally been running 1.45v 24/7 for the past 3 months now, and I have a rig behind me running 1.65v DDR3 on a cheapo ASUS Z170 board since February. It's still alive and kicking. 

 

If you have time to read one of my famous rants, I go into greater detail about this situation:

Also, in that kitguru source of yours, it appears someone in the comment section agrees with my statements:

Come to think of it.. the name Pelco. Is that you @Lays?!

Just remembered seeing buildzoid running some of his tforce xtreem ram at 2v when CPU isn't under dice or ln2. If it can survive 2v (though it's really not as much CPU surviving 2v), then 1.5 is fine

[MageTank]

4 hours ago, DocSwag said:

Just remembered seeing buildzoid running some of his tforce xtreem ram at 2v when CPU isn't under dice or ln2. If it can survive 2v (though it's really not as much CPU surviving 2v), then 1.5 is fine

@Lays has a video of his running at 2v with just an active fan over top of it. He does this all the time in an attempt to beat my memory overclocks. I can't find the video of it, but I am sure he will provide it (along with a screenshot of his ram being faster than mine, while being completely unstable) because that's just the kind of guy he is. 

[Lays]

11 hours ago, MageTank said:

@Lays has a video of his running at 2v with just an active fan over top of it. He does this all the time in an attempt to beat my memory overclocks. I can't find the video of it, but I am sure he will provide it (along with a screenshot of his ram being faster than mine, while being completely unstable) because that's just the kind of guy he is. 

Got rid of the video when I cleaned out my youtube channel the other day

 

here tho, lel

 

 

 

 

[MageTank]

Just now, Lays said:

Got rid of the video when I cleaned out my youtube channel the other day

 

here tho, lel

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you. I now posses the required screenshots to demonstrate what slow ram looks like. You are always there when I need you, man. 

[dexT]

I run 1.8v on a fast 1.65v XMP kit. Not 24/7 but usually 8-10hrs at a time.

 

I'm more worried about the massive voltage I use to achieve a 5.3GHz+ cache.

[noisebomb44]

Thanks guys! You saved me ~80 dollars, I had no idea intel has tried to spread miss-information, it even looks like they have deleted their original statement cited in multiple news outlets. To further support the claim that they lied, I have been running this setup for a few months now without a single sign of instability, I was just playing around in the BIOS one day and found that the info page on my motherboard said the ram ran at 1.5V and got worried.

[MageTank]

3 hours ago, noisebomb44 said:

Thanks guys! You saved me ~80 dollars, I had no idea intel has tried to spread miss-information, it even looks like they have deleted their original statement cited in multiple news outlets. To further support the claim that they lied, I have been running this setup for a few months now without a single sign of instability, I was just playing around in the BIOS one day and found that the info page on my motherboard said the ram ran at 1.5V and got worried.

It wasn't misinformation, it was a gross over-simplification of the process. It's far easier for them to say "don't use high vDIMM kits" because typically, high vDIMM kits run at higher speeds, and require more VCCIO/VCCSA to stabilize when using auto settings. It was the news outlets fault for not doing their own homework, and regurgitating things they do not understand. It boggles the mind to see how many of these news outlets refer to them as tech outlets or hardware outlets, but know very little of how things work. 

 

Intel's original statement was "high voltage kits can kill Skylake's IMC". This statement is still true, but not with vDIMM. It should only apply to VCCIO/VCCSA. Different motherboards will set a different auto-value for these two voltages, which is why Intel was worried. As long as you are under 1.25v each (personally I avoid going above 1.15v each, but to each their own) you should be perfectly fine for the long term. As for the vDIMM required to kill the IC's on your ram, it varies from IC to IC. Micron might tolerate higher heat than Samsung, but Samsung IC's might handle higher voltages/current than Micron when kept cooler. 

[noisebomb44]

On 2017-09-18 at 7:24 PM, MageTank said:

It wasn't misinformation, it was a gross over-simplification of the process. It's far easier for them to say "don't use high vDIMM kits" because typically, high vDIMM kits run at higher speeds, and require more VCCIO/VCCSA to stabilize when using auto settings. It was the news outlets fault for not doing their own homework, and regurgitating things they do not understand. It boggles the mind to see how many of these news outlets refer to them as tech outlets or hardware outlets, but know very little of how things work. 

 

Intel's original statement was "high voltage kits can kill Skylake's IMC". This statement is still true, but not with vDIMM. It should only apply to VCCIO/VCCSA. Different motherboards will set a different auto-value for these two voltages, which is why Intel was worried. As long as you are under 1.25v each (personally I avoid going above 1.15v each, but to each their own) you should be perfectly fine for the long term. As for the vDIMM required to kill the IC's on your ram, it varies from IC to IC. Micron might tolerate higher heat than Samsung, but Samsung IC's might handle higher voltages/current than Micron when kept cooler. 

Ok, so a few days later and I have checked the mobo.

CPU VCCIO is at 0.960 V

CPU VCCSA is at 1.068 V

So it seems like there will be no problem. Thanks for all the help!

[MageTank]

2 hours ago, noisebomb44 said:

Ok, so a few days later and I have checked the mobo.

CPU VCCIO is at 0.960 V

CPU VCCSA is at 1.068 V

So it seems like there will be no problem. Thanks for all the help!

Those are perfectly good values. As low as standard DDR3 VCCIO/VCCSA (which is normally around 0.950). You are good to go.