OCing with 4gb vs 2gb

J

JLove

n00b
Joined
Sep 3, 2007
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I had my sysyem running stable on air cooling with 2gb ram installed at 3.2ghz. I ran prime95 for over an hour with no issues. All games, programs ran fine at this speed. Then I installed 2 more gb of the exact same ram for a total of 4x1gb and I can't get the system over 2.9ghz. Any 2 modules used in combination will go up to 3.2 ghz but when all 4 gb are installed, I can't get it to OC as well. Is there an issue with overclocking when all ram slots are occupied? Should I get 2x2gb instead? Does my ram suck? By the way, the only setting in the bios that I have messed with is the FSB. Please help. Thanks.

Setup:

Vista Ultimate x64
Q6600 “GO” stepping
Gigabyte P35-DS3L
4x1GB Corsair XMS2-6400
EVGA 8800 GTS 320mb Superclocked
CoolerMaster 750w
WD Raptor X 150 GB (Vista & Programs)
WD 3x320 GB (Other stuff)
Omega HT Claro+
Thermaltake Tsunami Dream

JLove:D
 
Tried increasing northbridge voltage yet? What multiplier are you using?
 
My experience with a Gigabyte P965 board was even worse. 4 x 1 GB could not be made stable even at stock speeds no matter what I did and I did everything possible. It is not the fault of the memory.
 
well i don't really think its the fact that how much ram you have. rather how much can it push when it comes to running a lotta programs and with the combined power of your cpu.

both ways you'll get the same benchmark, just puts less pressure on the cpu when it comes to running things
 
mind you I'm using 2x2gb to reach my 4gb here, but I've not noticed any difficulty in pushing 450mhz on 1:1 for my overclock, both 8x450 and 9x400 work fine for me.
 
Had bad OC on Gigabyte X38 DQ6 and 4x1GB, not even stock speed on mem, way better and stable CPU/MEM OC on ASUS Maximus SE X38 with same memsetup, still going for testing out max OC.
 
I know it's been suggested but the raising of the NB voltage I've heard has given success where as it wasn't required when only using two matched sticks of ram instead of 4. Has it been tried yet? If I was in that situation that is what I'd try. So I am curious as the the results.
 
MaxTheLimit said:
I know it's been suggested but the raising of the NB voltage I've heard has given success where as it wasn't required when only using two matched sticks of ram instead of 4. Has it been tried yet? If I was in that situation that is what I'd try. So I am curious as the the results.
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I definitely recommend trying this. I had a similar problem this week with 4x1 gig PC8500 Tracers on P35-DQ6. Fixed with +0.05v on the NB.
 
BillParrish said:
My experience with a Gigabyte P965 board was even worse. 4 x 1 GB could not be made stable even at stock speeds no matter what I did and I did everything possible. It is not the fault of the memory.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was having the same problem with my Gigabyte P965 DS3. 2x1GB would run fine at 900MHz 4-4-4-12 with 2.1 volts. Added two more sticks of the same to 4x1GB and those timings no longer worked at that speed. Had to either lower the memory speed (and thusly my CPU overclock) or loosen my memory timings to 5-5-5-18.

I just bought an Abit IP35 Pro board. I didn't exactly expect this board to change that. I figured that was just the way things were with 4x memory setups. But to my surprise the Abit board doesn't seem to be any worse with 4 memory sticks than 2. I'm running 4x1GB at 900MHz with 4-4-4-12 and now 1T timings.
 
bumped up all the voltage settings .1v and I can push it to 3ghz stable now
 
It has been reported by many that overclocking with two sticks yields better results. Anybody who wants to overclock and needs 4GB should go 2x2GB.
 
Reiterating what was said, using all the DIMM slots does hamper an overclock. Upping the northbridge voltage a tad is a quick fix. If you still can't get as high as you want, 2x2GB is the next route to try.
 
It's true the matched 2 gig sticks is better than 4 1 gig sticks. But go easy. Some people can't really afford to throw out the money for a 4 gig kit.
 
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