Overclocking RAM

[SupersonicSaint]

I want to overclock my 3000mhz Patriot Viper RAM to 3200mhz using MSI Memory Try It. Should I set both DRAM frequency to 3200mhz and Memory Try It to 3200mhz and reboot to see if anything crashes or are you supposed to keep DRAM frequency at 3000mhz. I have never overclocked anything before and will be overclocking my Ryzen 5 2600 next. Thank you.

[Mooshi]

Ram is usually not worth overclocking since it's easy to cause instability issues for little gain. Personally, I'd stick to the XMP profile and overclock the CPU.

[WereCat]

Always OC the CPU before you start OCing RAM. Also make sure its 100% stable first.

[SupersonicSaint]

2 minutes ago, Mooshi said:

Ram is usually not worth overclocking since it's easy to cause instability issues for little gain. Personally, I'd stick to the XMP profile and overclock the CPU.

The XMP profile is under 3000mhz. XMP 1 is at 2300mhz and XMP 2 is at 2933mhz. I want to at least get my 3000mhz that I paid for.

[nick name]

4 minutes ago, Mooshi said:

Ram is usually not worth overclocking since it's easy to cause instability issues for little gain. Personally, I'd stick to the XMP profile and overclock the CPU.

Yes and no. It's easy to cause instability, but it can definitely be worth taking the time to find the settings that are stable. 

 

11 minutes ago, SupersonicSaint said:

I want to overclock my 3000mhz Patriot Viper RAM to 3200mhz using MSI Memory Try It. Should I set both DRAM frequency to 3200mhz and Memory Try It to 3200mhz and reboot to see if anything crashes or are you supposed to keep DRAM frequency at 3000mhz. I have never overclocked anything before and will be overclocking my Ryzen 5 2600 next. Thank you.

 

I believe Try It will adjust all the settings you need so you won't have to manually adjust the speed. But keep in mind -- Try It will only get you close to where you want to go. If you really want to get things dialed in you will have to begin to adjust individual settings yourself. The RAM overclock game can be very time consuming but also very rewarding.

[nick name]

@SupersonicSaint One thing you may have to do in conjunction with Try It is set your voltages. The faster speeds and tighter timings generally need more DRAM voltage. So a lot of XMP profiles are set to 1.35V. Feel free to go all the way up to 1.45V according to what AMD calls safe and many people go as high as 1.5V. SOC voltage you will want to bump to 1.1V and probably leave there. That is also an AMD recommendation. 

[PatXioPC]

I don't really use any automatic pre-programmed profiles to overclock any of my components, they have a tendency to not stabilize the memory controller by not giving vddcr Soc/NB not enough switching frequency and voltage. But only a 200mhz increase doesn't have to scale that much unless you are trying to go really high. Tap into the 3200mhz profile and enable XMP, and I guess you should be good to go. Run memtest in the UEFI mode to check the stability and boot into windows. It should all be fine. In ryzen, particularly, memory speed increase results in better performance and if you scale your cpu core clock higher, it would see more significance.

[nick name]

7 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Always OC the CPU before you start OCing RAM. Also make sure its 100% stable first.

This is probably the smartest way to go about it, but if you don't mind the headaches go in which ever order you want. 

[SupersonicSaint]

9 minutes ago, nick name said:

@SupersonicSaint One thing you may have to do in conjunction with Try It is set your voltages. The faster speeds and tighter timings generally need more DRAM voltage. So a lot of XMP profiles are set to 1.35V. Feel free to go all the way up to 1.45V according to what AMD calls safe and many people go as high as 1.5V. SOC voltage you will want to bump to 1.1V and probably leave there. That is also an AMD recommendation. 

Is this okay? I noticed at the top it says "DDR Speed 2133 MHz". Also, how do I "Run memtest in the UEFI mode to check the stability and boot into windows"

[Mooshi]

9 minutes ago, SupersonicSaint said:

The XMP profile is under 3000mhz. XMP 1 is at 2300mhz and XMP 2 is at 2933mhz. I want to at least get my 3000mhz that I paid for.

I was at 2933 when I first put my 1600 system together, current BIOS should get you at 3000mhz no problem. Set manually with the specs first and don't try pushing beyond until you get your CPU clock sorted.

[SupersonicSaint]

4 minutes ago, Mooshi said:

I was at 2933 when I first put my 1600 system together, current BIOS should get you at 3000mhz no problem. Set manually with the specs first and don't try pushing beyond until you get your CPU clock sorted.

I guess I'll do the CPU first, thanks. 

[Mooshi]

3 minutes ago, SupersonicSaint said:

I guess I'll do the CPU first, thanks. 

Everytime I've overclocked ram in the past, I'd always eventually take back to stock settings. Do the CPU for sure and then do 3000mhz to match your Ram's stock specs. After you know it's stable, save that profile and try going for 3200 if you feel like tweaking some more.

[SupersonicSaint]

2 minutes ago, Mooshi said:

Everytime I've overclocked ram in the past, I'd always eventually take back to stock settings. Do the CPU for sure and then do 3000mhz to match your Ram's stock specs. After you know it's stable, save that profile and try going for 3200 if you feel like tweaking some more.

Searching for a CPU overclocking guide then I'll do so.

[nick name]

32 minutes ago, SupersonicSaint said:

Is this okay? I noticed at the top it says "DDR Speed 2133 MHz". Also, how do I "Run memtest in the UEFI mode to check the stability and boot into windows"

 

I imagine if it says 2133MHz it probably is. You likely didn't save or apply any changes you made. And you probably won't need DRAM voltage of 1.45V at the speeds you're going to start at, but you can go up to 1.45V as needed as you progress in your overclock.

 

With your CPU overclock it's pretty straight forward. Increase CPU multiplier and increase CORE voltage. You don't want to be above 1.4V on your CORE voltage. Ideally you always want to find the lowest voltages that will allow you to run stable. You may need to set a Load Line Calibration, but you want to avoid the highest level of the LLC. So if it goes up to a level 5 then use level 4. 

 

And use this tool for your RAM tweaking:

https://www.overclock.net/forum/13-amd-general/1640919-ryzen-dram-calculator-1-1-0-beta-2-overclocking-dram-am4.html

[SupersonicSaint]

8 minutes ago, nick name said:

I imagine if it says 2133MHz it probably is. You likely didn't save or apply any changes you made. And you probably won't need DRAM voltage of 1.45V at the speeds you're going to start at, but you can go up to 1.45V as needed as you progress in your overclock.

 

With your CPU overclock it's pretty straight forward. Increase CPU multiplier and increase CORE voltage. You don't want to be above 1.4V on your CORE voltage. Ideally you always want to find the lowest voltages that will allow you to run stable. You may need to set a Load Line Calibration, but you want to avoid the highest level of the LLC. So if it goes up to a level 5 then use level 4. 

 

And use this tool for your RAM tweaking:

https://www.overclock.net/forum/13-amd-general/1640919-ryzen-dram-calculator-1-1-0-beta-2-overclocking-dram-am4.html

Thanks, CPU overclocked to 4.125 MHz with 1.3 V. I will now proceed to trying the RAM.

[nick name]

10 minutes ago, SupersonicSaint said:

Thanks, CPU overclocked to 4.125 MHz with 1.3 V. I will now proceed to trying the RAM.

Ayyy that seems pretty good. What are you using to stress test your CPU to check stability?

[SupersonicSaint]

1 hour ago, nick name said:

Ayyy that seems pretty good. What are you using to stress test your CPU to check stability?

After more stress testing I decided to put it down to 4.025 MHz at 1.3 V. I used Intel Burn Test for stressing. I also overclocked my RAM to 3200 MHz and stress tested with Ryzen Master Memory Stress Test. My 1070 Ti is that one Gigabyte overclocked version they accidentally released when they weren't supposed to so I don't need to worry about overclocking that further or my PC will get even more loud haha.

[nick name]

Try Prime95 as well. It's a test you can leave running. Use the Small FFTs for testing your CPU and Blend Tests for RAM testing. 

 

True RAM testing requires a test that will run overnight. A lot of people use HCI MemTest. You will want to look up how to best utilize that one. Also something like memtest64. Really something that you can run for an extended period and that can use as much of your RAM during the testing as possible. That is why some folks will test their RAM outside of the OS.

[SupersonicSaint]

50 minutes ago, nick name said:

Try Prime95 as well. It's a test you can leave running. Use the Small FFTs for testing your CPU and Blend Tests for RAM testing. 

 

True RAM testing requires a test that will run overnight. A lot of people use HCI MemTest. You will want to look up how to best utilize that one. Also something like memtest64. Really something that you can run for an extended period and that can use as much of your RAM during the testing as possible. That is why some folks will test their RAM outside of the OS.

I just ran 3DMark twice. Does it not suffice? 

[nick name]

Not if you really want to test your stability. Short runs of anything are good indicators that you're fine, but unless you want to find out the hard way during an intense gaming session or something important you want to at least those things I recommended. 

 

Different applications require different power amounts. You may find that you don't have sufficient voltage for either your CPU or your RAM. You can run the Prime95 Small FFTs test while browsing the web. Monitor your temps as you do with something like HWiFO and make sure none of the workers in the test have stopped due to an error. And then run a memory testing application overnight. 

 

None of this is mandatory but they are best practices.