Overclocking 1333 to 1600

[BanDeodorant]

I know ram speed barely matters for sandy bridge above 1333 but I feel like 1600 is the true sweet spot and place to be. Got two of these sets because of a deal last summer, or I would have went for the 1600.

I tried it without upping the voltage and got a bsod while trying to boot into windows and didn't really have time to mess with it further.

Was wondering if anyone tried to oc their 1333 ram to 1600 speeds, and did it successfully with what voltage? (Also, what is the max safe voltage)


P.S. (Ahh.. the good old days..) Where is (cf)Eclipse when you need him!

 

[jamsomito]

I have this RAM

It is 1.5V, DDR3 1333, CL9

I OC'ed in my BIOS to 1600 without changing latency or voltage and it runs like a champ. Ran Memtest overnight, no issues.

It would not run at anything faster without changing the latency timings though, no matter what the voltage. I haven't gotten around to trying different latency timings yet to see if it can go faster.

About the sweet spot, I would agree that the benchmarks I've seen over the net show this to be true (at least the gains for anything faster are minimal at best, slightly detrimental at worst). Maybe it's just in my head, but my PC felt slightly more snappy when I made this change. Microsoft also thinks going from 1333 to 1600 is good as your WEI will go up a few tenths of a point.

Just my 2 cents. Hope this helps.

EDIT: The max voltage for RAM with SB is actually 1.5V +/- 5%... this comes out to 1.575 volts, which is less than a lot of mainstream RAM at 1.65V. However, people have been running 1.65V with no issues (yet). I'd read through this thread if you want any more info.

 

[xxEIEIOxx]

I think 1600 is as good as it gets for Sandy Bridge. I clocked mine up to 1866 once to see what it would do and no test that I ran scored any differently so I went back down to 1600. My RAM is rated for 1.65 volts but it runs fine at 1.6. I'm not worried about any issues from doing so. If your 1333 is any good then 1600 should run fine. All you have to do is find the right timings and volts (may not even have to change) and it should be good.

 

[BanDeodorant]

Thanks for the info guys, I tried up to 1.55 yesterday, but no go. (Kept the same 9-9-9-24 timings and didn't have much time to mess around some more with these and higher voltages) So far it's looking like I got one or two bum sets, but I'll update when/if I have better luck.