populating all DIMM slots hurt OC'ing?

I

Imitation

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So back when we were still on socket 775 i thought if we had all 4 dimm slots filled, we'd lose some ability to obtain a max OC. Is that still the case with sandy bridge? I'm getting ready to build a new rig to replace the old quad with ivy bridge, but i'm not sure if I should move to 16gig with 2x8gig sticks or if i can roll with 4x4gig sticks without any issues. My goal is to obtain my max OC of the cpu above all else, so if 4x4gig sticks doesn't hinder me, i'll go that route since its cheaper.
 
Even if S775 days, if you had a good motherboard, filling all 4 slots didn't hurt overclocking. You would probably have had to raise the voltages a tiny bit, but the same overclock should have been achievable.

The new setups really should have no issue with having all the slots filled. A little more volateg may be needed for the IMC, but that is really about it.

Keep your stuff cool enough and you will be fine.
 
I went from 2 to 4 sticks on mine, and it didn't affect overclocking at all. I'm not really pushing the chip to the max though.
 
yes filling the ram slots can affect overclocking. More voltage is being used by the ram and the memory controller on the CPU is affected dealing with more ram.

I had 6GB in 3 2GB DDR1600 sticks at cas 7 in my Rampage Extreme 3. I had serious overclocking changes when I switched to 24GB.

I had to raise certain voltages due to the increased draw from the ram and I also had to change other voltages slightly.

So does it affect overclocking. Yes. Does it affect every overclock? No.
 
FWIW back in the day maxing out an older 775 mb on Gbs, which usually meant filling all the slots, could be problematic even without over-clocking, but it was usually possible to get them stable depending on what was in the card slots (nic’s were the most troublesome).

I don’t have much experience with the newest boards but I was warned by G Skill forum moderators that I would slow the memory controller by populating all the slots in my sig rig. Nobody seemed to know how much of a performance hit, but most seemed to think I could still over-clock the processor to at least 4.5 Gz and would probably would have to do so to stabilize the memory and that it would not be easy to do. I’m about to find out.

Later,
Tom S
 
Generally the high capacity dimms, or all slots populated did hurt OC performance, sometimes a miniscule amount, other times a very large amount, also the speed those sticks run, some controllers had a hard time providing enough power to populate all dimms at a high speed(Phenom II as an example)

Most modern motherboards have 2 slots or more that are generally better equipped for high clock speeds for the memory, but doesnt hurt the cpu clocking ability.

I suppose to sum it up, it used to be a major factor, really is not anymore as the IMC on the cpus are much better then they once were and can handle alot of variables, as long as the dimms can support higher voltages it usually helps, however, Intel does warn against using to high a voltage on thier IMC that feeds the memory so if your dimms are already at this mark, it may pose a problem, but I bet 90% of folks do not see this isssue, provided they dont use a bottom of the pile motherboard :)
 
Well on my socket 2011 I have all 8 Dimms filled with 4GB sticks. I do not see a degradation in overclockability. The chips already support 1600spd ram so technically anything higher is Overclocked. I am running 1600mhz across the entire 8 dimm array so technically I am not overclocking my chip's memory controller. It does not seem to effect my CPU overclocking. I haven't really tried to push my ram any higher than the native support for DDR3-1600.
 
http://www.corsair.com/blog/intel-x79-quad-channel-memory-guide/

The sandy-E are not quite the same, they use different memory dividers among other things which is also something to point out, if the board or cpu allow a larger range of possible dividers it may not be much of an issue, where lower end boards or ones that do not "suuport" overclocking have limitd range in alot of ways.

Example, I have seen boards that right in thier manual state dual sided dimms are not supported on all channels, in other words, if one is using higher capacity ram you may not be able to max out the socekts AND if one uses all sockets they may not run at rated speed or require more voltage to do so,

Again, this doesnt seem to be much of a problem anymore, AMD has been doing dual channel for years, and Intel wise, I have kind of seen the problem with core 2 and prior but have not heard of it anymore, so again, years.
 
I'm running 4x4GB at 1600 with an i7-2600k at 4.8GHz so I would call it a non problem. I could go higher, I just don't care.
 
I think it's a non problem with modern chipsets. Last I had issue with this was with S775 on the P45
 
I suppose it COULD affect overclocking but I've never seen a significant difference one way or another in any of my systems. I think the effect would be minimal if anything at all.
 
I've never ran in to a problem, however getting matching sticks for your old ones could result in one set overclocking better than the other, so keep that in mind.
 
on Socket 775 yes, because the northbridge handles the memory and S775 NB's are already known to get really hot (my 780i SLI and Rampage Formula both had extremely hot northbridges running 4 dimms, I had to downclock the 1066 Dimms to 800 if I ran all 4 sticks, I could run 2 at 1066 though)
 
So its sounding like the consensus is that overall the new chipsets should be able to handle 4 slots and not hinder OC. That's what i was expecting and that's good news. I'll likely just roll with a 4x4gig pack when ivy bridge comes out! I think worst case, it doesn't OC as well, i return em or sell em and get 2 sticks instead and eat a little more cost there.
 
A couple years ago, I heard, that populating all, slots would stress the north bridge, or south bridge, i can't remember. But that was a couple years ago, so it may not be relevant any more.
 
Maximilian144 said:
A couple years ago, I heard, that populating all, slots would stress the north bridge, or south bridge, i can't remember. But that was a couple years ago, so it may not be relevant any more.
Click to expand...

There are no more north bridges, so that's not really relevant any longer. It does still stress the memory controller, but not to the detriment that it used to have.
 
My old X58 rig had all 6 slots populated with 4gb sticks. I had to raise a few of the voltages to get to 4.2ghz stable with my 960. No loss in performance though that I could see. The X79? Yeah, it laughs at you and says "Come at me, bro. But come at me with more than that". 32gb - fully populated. DDR voltages on auto and not trying too hard at 4.5ghz on the 3820. Shoot, for the first time ever, I've left the voltage and multi down-clockers going and it's STILL stable. Can't wait for Ivy Bridge and some even nicer temps with the die shrink.
 
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