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RIVE DRAM upgrade

sigtrm
Level 7
I would like to hear some experience based suggestions for dram upgrade.

I have RIVE with 3930K working stable @4.4Ghz with 1066MHz DDRs and I would like to push it a little but farther to 4.7GHz.

I know about X79 pickyness so my question is which RAM modules do you suggest? which speed? Shall I buy 4 x ?


It is quite old CPU from '11 so I do not want to spend loads on RAM. 16GB is enough if not possible 4x8GB.

thanks in advance.

PS. What voltage is reasonable for 3930K @ 4.7Ghz?
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2 REPLIES 2

Nate152
Moderator
Hello sigtrm

What ram are you using now?

The g.skill ripjaws - z was designed for x79 platforms. I will suggest to get a single kit of the capacity you want, don't mix two identical kits.

Go with ripjaws - z 16GB or 32GB of 2133MHz or 2400Mhz.


What voltage are you at for 4.4GHz?

jab383
Level 13
The current crop of Ripjaws-Z 4GB DIMMs appear to be single sided - one rank of RAM chips. That reduces bandwidth because there are fewer ranks of memory to alternate between. That would favor older DRAMs, on Ebay for instance, or would favor 8GB DIMMs. In any case, buy a set of 4 to keep all four channels loaded - again it's a bandwidth thing.

Ripjaws-Z may have some advantages in an R4E, but are not necessary. I'm using TridentX in my testbench R4E with Sandy Bridge - planning to use them with Ivy Bridge and Haswell in the coming weeks. A 3960X couldn't get to DDR3-2400, so I ran it at 2333. The 3970X just barely gets to DDR3-2400, but does a good job there. The CPU and its memory controller are as important as the DRAMs. Even the best Sandy Bridge IMCs are unlikely to get over 2400, so spending for more speed isn't worth it. If DDR3-2400 RAM doesn't get to 2400, it isn't the RAM's fault.

The silicon lottery is at play when trying to predict voltage for speed. I'll say my 3960X and 3970X booted into Windows at 4.8GHz with 1.47Vcore. That doesn't mean much because one then needed adjustment upward for stability and the other needed adjustment downward for more efficiency. Your 3930K is surely different from those.

Here's a suggestion: Set everything in BIOS to AUTO - maybe clear CMOS to get there. Set manual, sync all cores and 48 multiplier. Let the board boot. If it makes it into Windows, note the voltages - Vcore, Vccsa and Vtt - and use those for starting points for your own tweaking. Note that the CPU will burn a lot more power at higher voltage and speed. How's your cooling? Watch the temperatures when you try any sort of stability test.

Jeff