OCing the F3-2666C11D-16GTXD Kit

[LBro]

Hi,
I was finally able to get the F3-2666C11D-16GTXD Kit on sale at just below $200 for 16 GB.

It will be here early next week and I am already thinking about OC settings for the kit. Of course I need to get it up and running on my system at the rated speed first.

My question is on where to start the OC settings for this kit. I have the following and wonder if that is what you would recommend?

2800 12-14-14-35 @ 1.65V
2933 12-14-14-35 @ 1.66V

Any settings worth a try using a CL of 11 ??? If so, what would be your suggestion?

Thanks for your help!

LB

[emissary42]

Your findings seem about right for this kit and the ICs used. If 2800 11-14-14-35 is possible, it will need a lot more voltage than 1.65V.

[LBro]

Hum,
I trust you are on the money about needing more voltage. What do you consider the approximate "safe" upper limit for the voltage value?

Thanks
LB

[emissary42]

For just benching most people would consider 1.85V still safe, others try to stay below 1.75V. For 24/7 use i'd stay at or below 1.65V.

[GSKILL TECH]

Heat and keeping the modules cool under high Voltage is always the main concern to prevent hardware degradation.

[LBro]

Hum,
Been thinking about this one. How does one figure the best bang for the buck speed/bandwidth wise? For instance if you have a CL of 11 and a frequency of 2666. Will that offer better overall throughput performance over say a CL of 12 @ 2800? What I do not understand fully is the relationship between CL and the frequency. Somewhere in there is a sweet spot and I am trying to figure out what that is.

Thanks,
LB

[emissary42]

What you do is test actual performance with applications relevant to you and compare memory settings against one another, keeping everything else the same. If you don't know where to start, try Aida64 Memory Benchmark, SuperPi / HyperPi, 7zip Benchmark, PCMark or ASUS Realbench 2.2 (do 5+ runs, for consistency). That should give you a somewhat general idea.

It is a bit late for best bang for buck considerations, if you have a 2666 kit already^^

[LBro]

Hi Em,
What you say makes good sense as far as benchmarking and testing the various RAM configurations. I will do that as I just got the RAM shipment today.

What I meant by 'bang for the buck' was not referring to kits, but rather this kit. In other words what settings give the best performance... or bang for the buck. You pretty much have addressed that and I thank you!

EDIT: By the way the system this Ram is going into is used primarily as a DAW.

LB

[emissary42]

DAW = digital audio workstation?

I don't really know anything but the basics, like how overall system latency with mixed I/O is pretty key. Is DAW generally considered to be heavy on memory bandwidth?

I'd compare Defaults / 1600 CL11 to 2133 CL9, 2400 CL10/CL11, 2600 CL11, 2666 CL11, 2800 CL12 (and 2933 CL12 if you really have to^^). The higher settings probably need manually tweaked tertiary timings for full efficiency, otherwise memory read/copy bandwidth will be kinda low... because most boards relax tertiaries to the ground for best compatibility with higher speed kits.

[LBro]

Yes you have it right, Digital Audio Workstation. I am not sure on bandwidth memory usage in a DAW. One reason is I was out of it for about 3 years. When I went to go back to using my DAW again I found that things had changed a lot. It used to be you could get by with a middle of the road CPU and Memory, but that has changed and it seems to require more horsepower now.

Is there any info around on changing and tuning tertiary timings that you know of, say a PDF how to guide or something?

LB

[emissary42]

There are some general guides on overclocking and memory tweaking for some mainboards, e.g. ASUS Maximus, ASRock OC Formula or Gigabyte (S)OC series:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1490835/t...ng-guide/0_100

But i don't think there is any universal How-To's since the available tertiary timings and their names vary quite a bit from one manufacturer to another and model to model.

To be honest for a DAW i'd probably stay away from overclocking the memory any further. DDR3-2666 is already pretty fast to begin with and you're actually already way above what you'd normally see in a production system. Also tweaking memory for performance first and then for stability afterwards will take several days. And you would have to learn how to do it properly in the first place. That is something you could always do later on if you're unhappy with the actual performance of your system.

[LBro]

What you say makes sense. I was actually doing fairly well with the old Ram which was stock at 1600 and that you and support here helped me get up to 1866. So jumping up to 2666 is going to be a nice kick in the rear performance wise. Or at least I hope it is.

You are very right as I do not know the fine art of memory tweaking!

I have yet to sit down and install the Ram yet. Maybe on Thursday. Just been pretty busy of late.

Can not thank you enough for all the advice and help you have given!

LB

[emissary42]

I have yet to sit down and install the Ram yet.

Tell us how it worked out for you and maybe drop a pic or two of your system in the forums

[LBro]

I will do that EM. Not sure my pics will turn out as good as yours as my machine is fully built out and it is kind of crowded in there. It is also hard to get a good angle for taking pics of the Ram. But I will give it a shot.

Can the pics be embedded here? Or does one have to store them elsewhere on the net and post a link to them from here?

LB

[emissary42]

You can attach images, but the allowed size is very limited (= post stamp style). I do use my own webspace or some random one click image hoster. There are even browser extensions available for that, if you don't know where to start.