Memory Speed and Overclocking

I just ordered 8 Gb of Corsair Vengeance ram to accompany other 8 Gb already in my system. I used CPU-z before I bought the ram to make sure everything was the same and compatible but I saw that it was running at 800 MHz and the ram I bought, Crucial Ballistix Sport 8Gb, were advertised at 1600 MHz. Should I overclock them to be at 1600 MHz or is 800MHz what it is suppose to run at? If I should overclock what would I set the values to be or is there any good tutorials on the forum or anywhere else? But before I even do this I don't even really know what is the point of faster memory. I mostly game but I also use Photoshop frequently and I like usually have 30+ tabs open in chrome at the same time when I use Photoshop.

My specs are:

Processor | Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 4.40GHz
Memory | 8192MB RAM
Hard Drive | 2.5 TB Total
Motherboard | ASRock Z77 Extreme 4
Operating System | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Video Card | AMD Radeon HD7750 1Gb

You bought a dual channel kit right? So 2x4 GB?
If so its running at dual channel and is running 800 MHz on each stick.

If it was a quad channel kit at 1600 MHz it would run at 400 MHz on each stick.

Savage you are completely wrong with your thinking. RAM runs at double speed. DDR stands for double data rate and the advertized speed of the RAM is already taking this into account. This can be confusing since programs like CPU-Z will show its base speed (800) but it is actually running at 1600.

Dual channel and quad channel does not halve or quarter the speed. Also the only motherboards out that use quad channel are for top-of-the-line expensive high end motherboards. Most motherboards have 2 dual channels which can use 4 sticks. Its best to only populate one of the channels if you can help it but if you need more capacity they give you another dual channel to work with. A dual channel allows 2 sticks to be operated as if it were one big stick. If you have both dual channels populated the memory controller has to alternate between channels if one of them becomes filled up. This is where quad channel comes into play to increase performance allowing 4 sticks to be used at the same time.

There have been many tests between 1600 speed memory and higher speeds and so far there is very little difference other than the dollar amount you are spending. I have 2133 speed memory simply because it was on sale and about $5 more than the 1600. You have to make sure your motherboard is able to support faster memory so watch out.

Unless you are maxing out your memory I don't see the point in buying any more. The 8GB of 1600 speed you already have should be sufficient.

If you right-click the windows task bar and select task manager you can go to the performance tab and it will monitor your memory usage there.

I was wrong on the quad channels, but what I said still applies to dual channel memory kits.

No you are still wrong. Here is a wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR_memory

Well with everything on my PC closed except Steam, Spotify, and Avast I run at 6gb of used memory and with Photoshop and some tabs open in chrome I get close to that 8gb mark. But also would there be any benefit in overclocking ram for any reason?

Back in the day there used to be a huge benefit for overclocking your RAM. Nowadays the impact of overclocking RAM is next to nil. And honestly nobody overclocks the RAM anymore. They just buy RAM rated at higher speeds and set the motherboard for that speed.

Here is a great article comparing RAM most people would be using on current systems: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-bandwidth-latency-gaming,3409.html

For some games there is a slight difference in performance but for others there is absolutely none. One of the scores is with them using quad channel so you can discount that score unless you actually have that beast of a machine. Even the final table shows that at best there is between a 2-4% difference between the different types of RAM and configurations.

"The name "double data rate" refers to the fact that a DDR SDRAM with a certain clock frequency achieves nearly twice the bandwidth of a SDR SDRAM running at the same clock frequency, due to this double pumping."
Go into your bios and check the frequencies each stick is running at.

My motherboard is using the XMP profile off the RAM. However CPU-Z is showing that my 2133 speed is running at 1066.6. What point are you trying to make? Sorry if I came off as mean earlier but I don't like seeing people make shit up on this forum. Having a dual channel or quad channel does not halve or quarter the speed of each stick. I am just correcting that error you stated earlier. DDR runs at double its base speed. The doubled speed is what is usually advertised.

Maybe looking at another table will help you grasp this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3_SDRAM Just scroll down til you see the module table and note the bus clock and the data rate

You could also say that the data rate of DDR memory is double its bus clock.

That each stick is running on 1066.6 to achieve 2133 MHz. Its running half of the advertised speed on two sticks to achieve the double data rate. If you can't even grasp that concept while trying to shove the wiki in my face then I'm done talking here. I already admitted I was wrong on the "quad channel kits" after I read up on it, but that doesn't change the fact you keep telling me I'm wrong despite the fact that we're basically saying the same thing.

The sticks do not run at half speed when more than 1 are present. That is their normal speed. I keep giving you credible info backing up what I am saying but you do not. Because what you are saying is not true. I have an A+ cert and have been building PCs since 2004. You are just confusing their bus speeds with the data speeds.

My home cinema computer has 1 stick of DDR3-1600 and CPU-Z shows it as running at 800. Please explain wise master.

Well that's the point, whatever software op is looking at is displaying the bus speed and I already answered him that its normal for it to display that. A+ certified on what? What's your point?
You keep saying you're giving credible info while you're just linking to the wiki which I've already read the full page of.

He means this.

Nachbar's right. End of story.
(I'm A+ certified as well.)

SavageBJ is confusing double data rate (DDR) and dual-channel memory. I'd put some Wikipedia links, but that seems to be too mainstream for them and I can't be bothered to look for some elite geek community thread discussing the very basics of RAM operation.

Interestingly enough, Wikipedia mentions this common misconception:


tl;dr 800MHz DDR3 is running at a 800MHz clock frequency but makes two data transfers per clock signal. It makes 1600M data transfers per second, hence 1600MHz. This is in no way connected to dual-channel memory and is true for all DDR memory, no matter if you have 1, 2, 4, or 25 modules installed.

As far as overclocking goes, expect a marginal benefit (no more than 5%, usually 2%-3%). Also, to properly measure the performance, we'd have to go into memory timings and whatnot (higher frequency != "faster" RAM) and that's far more than I'm willing to type on a 4.65" screen. Also...


Since the modules aren't identical, whichever is the better pair will have to run "slower", depending on what the other pair can handle (otherwise, you'd compromise stability).

Furthermore, HDDs tend to be the bottleneck nowadays, an SSD might help a lot more than OC'd RAM.

On a different note, I found it amusing that our specs are pretty much the same, except mine is Sandy instead of Ivy - 2500K @ 4.4GHz, Z68 Extreme4, 2x4GB Corsair Vengeance @ 1600MHz 8-8-8-24, etc.