# G.Skill Trident Z RGB 3200Mhz Overclocking Help



## disintegratorx

As far as your voltage goes, I'd pretty much keep that where its at and then focus on your VCCIN voltage compared to your processor and motherboard recommended OC by someone that has overclocked it, and try some lower timings or if you're going with higher speeds, see what it can handle with your already rated SPD, and I think with this DDR4, the TRRCD, or whatever it actually is, the one with the higher clocks above 700, you can probably turn those down a little bit, for example mine was set at 748 and I have mine tuned to a tea at 734. The secondaries unless you really can know what you're doing, I wouldn't mess with those. Also, I know that in the previous Gen you could change the read to pre lower, but I haven't been able to do that for this Gen, DDR4.


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## shellashock

To start, I recommend you read Magetank's DDR4 OC guide here: https://www.overclock.net/forum/18051-memory/1630388-comprehensive-memory-overclocking-guide.html

This gives the basics of memory settings, "safe" voltage ranges, when to make tradeoffs between frequencies and timings and the general order of memory OC operations.

Once you have read Magetank's guide and have an idea of what to expect, I would look at the official DDR4 24/7 stability thread here: https://www.overclock.net/forum/5-i...-intel-ddr4-24-7-memory-stability-thread.html

It is very important to make sure you are properly testing for memory stability in order to prevent silent (or not so silent) memory corruption during your overclocking escapades. You can find all kinds of anecdotes, best practices and obscure tips in this thread and is well worth skimming through. Do note that memory overclocking can have many failure points (too high frequency, too tight timings, too much/not enough VDIMM/VCCSA/VCCIO for desired settings, not enough vCore for combined CPU Cache + DDR4 OC, etc) and it is vital to detect any instability BEFORE you get 30 settings deep into an overclocking spree and cannot figure out how to stabilise your OC. 

If there is anything you should take away from here, it is "Test one thing at a time, prove stability before moving on and ALWAYS backup your data before you begin memory overclocking!" 

Finally, I have found this thread on HWBot by [email protected] very helpful for understanding relationships and general expectations for DDR4 memory settings: https://community.hwbot.org/topic/147255-guide-skylake-memory-timings-on-asus-motherboards/. I recommend that you treat this guide as a checklist for overclocking your memory; change one group of settings at a time, check if it is stable and how the changes impact performance and adjust accordingly. 

In general, I highly suggest you don't blindly copy-paste numbers into your bios for each setting because differences in motherboards, memory sticks/ICs and even CPU IMCs can dramatically change what settings are even bootable; let alone stable. I would always recommend you take a look at what your mobo + memory XMP settings are and change from there.


EDIT: How much time are you willing to invest in overclocking your RAM? Even ignoring the time it takes to stability test, RAM overclocking can be very finicky and require dozens of changes before you find something that works; even when just playing with frequency, primary timings and tRFC.


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## Sylencer90

shellashock said:


> To start, I recommend you read Magetank's DDR4 OC guide here: https://www.overclock.net/forum/18051-memory/1630388-comprehensive-memory-overclocking-guide.html
> 
> This gives the basics of memory settings, "safe" voltage ranges, when to make tradeoffs between frequencies and timings and the general order of memory OC operations.
> 
> Once you have read Magetank's guide and have an idea of what to expect, I would look at the official DDR4 24/7 stability thread here: https://www.overclock.net/forum/5-i...-intel-ddr4-24-7-memory-stability-thread.html
> 
> It is very important to make sure you are properly testing for memory stability in order to prevent silent (or not so silent) memory corruption during your overclocking escapades. You can find all kinds of anecdotes, best practices and obscure tips in this thread and is well worth skimming through. Do note that memory overclocking can have many failure points (too high frequency, too tight timings, too much/not enough VDIMM/VCCSA/VCCIO for desired settings, not enough vCore for combined CPU Cache + DDR4 OC, etc) and it is vital to detect any instability BEFORE you get 30 settings deep into an overclocking spree and cannot figure out how to stabilise your OC.
> 
> If there is anything you should take away from here, it is "Test one thing at a time, prove stability before moving on and ALWAYS backup your data before you begin memory overclocking!"
> 
> Finally, I have found this thread on HWBot by [email protected] very helpful for understanding relationships and general expectations for DDR4 memory settings: https://community.hwbot.org/topic/147255-guide-skylake-memory-timings-on-asus-motherboards/. I recommend that you treat this guide as a checklist for overclocking your memory; change one group of settings at a time, check if it is stable and how the changes impact performance and adjust accordingly.
> 
> In general, I highly suggest you don't blindly copy-paste numbers into your bios for each setting because differences in motherboards, memory sticks/ICs and even CPU IMCs can dramatically change what settings are even bootable; let alone stable. I would always recommend you take a look at what your mobo + memory XMP settings are and change from there.
> 
> 
> EDIT: How much time are you willing to invest in overclocking your RAM? Even ignoring the time it takes to stability test, RAM overclocking can be very finicky and require dozens of changes before you find something that works; even when just playing with frequency, primary timings and tRFC.



Thanks for the informative answer ! I was actually hoping someone would actually rock my specs since it's not that uncommon to use and maybe found out some decent settings which i could just copy.


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## Hydroplane

Set voltage to 1.5v, set speed to 3600, leave the timings stock (14-14-14-34), worked for me


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## ThrashZone

Hi,
Past 3200C14 speed can show diminishing results 
Keep in mind ram oc'ing is a very good way to corrupt an os install 
Make system images before attempting it.


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## Dasa

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> Past 3200C14 speed can show diminishing results


True but overclocking 3200c14 XMP to 4000c17 still brings more performance to some programs than overclocking my 6700K from stock to 4.7GHz and 9900K having twice the cores is likely to be a fair bit more starved for memory.

A good way to avoid corrupting primary OS is to run Gsat in linux from a USB boot for preliminary testing and finish up with HCI once you have it dialed in which will focus more on the memory controller stability.

There is some good info here
https://www.overclock.net/forum/5-i...-intel-ddr4-24-7-memory-stability-thread.html

Although a lot of it will likely go over your head and the article is aimed at AMD CPU this still has some great general info.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Ryzen_Memory_Tweaking_Overclocking_Guide/


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## Sylencer90

Hydroplane said:


> Set voltage to 1.5v, set speed to 3600, leave the timings stock (14-14-14-34), worked for me


Doesn't it hurt the Mem running over 1.4v 24/7?


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## ThrashZone

Hi,
Yeah 1.5v is on the extreme side
3600 might not even need 1.4 for 400Mhz.


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## The Pook

Sylencer90 said:


> Doesn't it hurt the Mem running over 1.4v 24/7?



The issue like with OCing anything is temps. Just make sure it has good airflow. 1.5v is safe for 24/7 and even ~1.9v is fine for benchmarking.


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## ThrashZone

Hi,
3600 just try 16-16-16-36 and set 3600MHz 1.39v or so.


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## Sylencer90

The Pook said:


> The issue like with OCing anything is temps. Just make sure it has good airflow. 1.5v is safe for 24/7 and even ~1.9v is fine for benchmarking.


Updated main Post with more Infos about my Spec.



ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> 3600 just try 16-16-16-36 and set 3600MHz 1.39v or so.


Was aiming for sth like 3300-3466 @ CL14.


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## ThrashZone

Hi,
Easiest oc is just using another model memory timing 
There is also 3600C15 = 15-15-15-35 I believe just look the sets up
https://benzhaomin.github.io/bdiefinder/

Most of these sets should work with rated voltage 1.35v unless it states otherwise in spec's.

1.9v is crazy :kookoo:


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## The Pook

do some reading here, there's more to timings than primaries. my 4133 kit even with manually set primaries to CL17 was getting outperformed by the 3600 CL17 kit it replaced because my motherboard set the secondaries/tertiaries so wonky.

https://www.overclock.net/forum/5-i...-intel-ddr4-24-7-memory-stability-thread.html

There's 0 point buying fast RAM and leaving secondaries/tertiaries on auto.


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## Sylencer90

The Pook said:


> do some reading here, there's more to timings than primaries. my 4133 kit even with manually set primaries to CL17 was getting outperformed by the 3600 CL17 kit it replaced because my motherboard set the secondaries/tertiaries so wonky.
> 
> https://www.overclock.net/forum/5-i...-intel-ddr4-24-7-memory-stability-thread.html
> 
> There's 0 point buying fast RAM and leaving secondaries/tertiaries on auto.


Oof that's quite a bit to go through. Tho im interested in going a bit deeper into OC, sadly i lack the time to study all of this and test bunch of stuff / doing tests over and over. Apparently i bought the "wrong" kit because i haven't came across someone with my specs who did some deep digging in OC.


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## The Pook

Sylencer90 said:


> Oof that's quite a bit to go through. Tho im interested in going a bit deeper into OC, sadly i lack the time to study all of this and test bunch of stuff / doing tests over and over. Apparently i bought the "wrong" kit because i haven't came across someone with my specs who did some deep digging in OC.



lower = better (except for tREFI) is all you really need to understand. just look for someone with the same/similar kit as yours in that thread and copy their timings. Most people there when they get things dialed in will post a screenshot of their final timings along with a RAM Test run showing stability.


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## ThrashZone

Sylencer90 said:


> Updated main Post with more Infos about my Spec.
> 
> Was aiming for sth like 3300-3466 @ CL14.


Hi,
What happens if you set either of those frequencies or what ever is listed on 14-14-14-34 timings as options above 3200C14.
Do either post and test okay at default voltage.


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## disintegratorx

I've actually found that setting my CPU to o.c. per core, and likewise to dynamic at (and this is for mine) 4.5 as a target for all the cores except for the best 2, them being 4.6 and leaving turbo ON is giving me the best performance, but I know that settings can vary heavily by the chipset. Oh yeah, and not to brag but kinda, lol my ram kit is one of the best there is, its just not able to hit 4266 on the Skylake X IMC.. Therefore my numbers are locked in at 2T, of course and 16 17 17 36 with a TRRfC of 734, respectively.. With 1.45V but mine is not LPDDR4, its regular and produced to run at that amount..


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## Sylencer90

The Pook said:


> lower = better (except for tREFI) is all you really need to understand. just look for someone with the same/similar kit as yours in that thread and copy their timings. Most people there when they get things dialed in will post a screenshot of their final timings along with a RAM Test run showing stability.


Guess that's what i have to do, probably gonna spend my next lunch break digging through this thread to find the desired settings.

Thanks for your time and words.


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## ThrashZone

Hi,
Sending you to a 9000+ thread to scroll through is a safe bet seeing you really haven't said anything about what happens if you do increase or use the frequency you're hoping to use.

No mention of present settings used for 3200C14 either so can we assume you're using 3200 xmp profile with everything on auto.
If so like I said before increase xmp profiles frequency and see what happens


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## Sylencer90

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> Sending you to a 9000+ thread to scroll through is a safe bet seeing you really haven't said anything about what happens if you do increase or use the frequency you're hoping to use.
> 
> No mention of present settings used for 3200C14 either so can we assume you're using 3200 xmp profile with everything on auto.
> If so like I said before increase xmp profiles frequency and see what happens


Leaving everything on auto and increasing from 3200 to 3333 made my PC not boot. I will start to scroll through the thread right now.

First Screen are my stock settings.



Found some stock specs for the cl 15 3600 kit, are these the kind of settings is should try?


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## ThrashZone

Hi,
Sure just lower the frequency to 33..-3400MHz and see what happens.


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## The Pook

Sylencer90 said:


> Leaving everything on auto and increasing from 3200 to 3333 made my PC not boot. I will start to scroll through the thread right now.
> 
> First Screen are my stock settings.
> 
> 
> 
> Found some stock specs for the cl 15 3600 kit, are these the kind of settings is should try?



The primaries are good but that's not really impressive sub timings, they're loose and look to be just be XMP + what the motherboard will set when left on auto. 

Try to run ~3200-3600 with 15-15-15-35 primaries and copy my secondaries/tertiaries. You likely could do better than what I have since you're aiming for 3600 (my screenshot is 4000) but it's a better starting point than that screenshot you posted.


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## Sylencer90

The Pook said:


> The primaries are good but that's not really impressive sub timings, they're loose and look to be just be XMP + what the motherboard will set when left on auto.
> 
> Try to run ~3200-3600 with 15-15-15-35 primaries and copy my secondaries/tertiaries. You likely could do better than what I have since you're aiming for 3600 (my screenshot is 4000) but it's a better starting point than that screenshot you posted.


What Voltage, VCCIO& SA Voltage you would suggest? And which Tools should i defo grab to Test if those Settings are stable for me? (preferably only tools which i can run in windows)

Thanks for your helpful posts and the time you spent on them.


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## ThrashZone

Hi,
You could also try 14-15-14-36 and command rate T1 seems you're on T2 now.


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## The Pook

Sylencer90 said:


> What Voltage, VCCIO& SA Voltage you would suggest? And which Tools should i defo grab to Test if those Settings are stable for me? (preferably only tools which i can run in windows)
> 
> Thanks for your helpful posts and the time you spent on them.



As little as possible. 1.3v VCCIO + SA and 1.5v vDIMM are fine for 24/7. You shouldn't need more than 1.2v VCCIO/SA for 3600.

Either RAM Test ($9), GSAT (can run it in Windows), or make a bootable USB of MemTest86. I use RAM Test.


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## Sylencer90

The Pook said:


> As little as possible. 1.3v VCCIO + SA and 1.5v vDIMM are fine for 24/7. You shouldn't need more than 1.2v VCCIO/SA for 3600.
> 
> Either RAM Test ($9), GSAT (can run it in Windows), or make a bootable USB of MemTest86. I use RAM Test.


Reporting back. Spent the last 3 hours to get my pc boot up into windows again. Tried your settings at first with stated voltage -> PC did not even boot into bios and instead safety switched it's bios into the backup one. Could not change anything there since it was stock default settings. After like 3-4 attempts the pc would finally start and let me into the bios. Immediately changed every setting back into auto and booted into windows to verify nothing broke my OS install. 
After that i decided to do what that other guy said "just" change primary timings to 15-15-15-35 & select 3600 mhz. My didn't boot into windows but instead went into bios and told me sth was configured incorrectly. Upped VCCIO & SA to 1.2 and Dram voltage to 1.4v - reboot again into bios - upped Dram voltage step by step on 0.1 at a time. At 1.5 the bios switched itself back on the backup one. 

So at this point i said **** it and prayed to god i can get into bios again and default the **** out of it. Guess i'll remain on default XMP RAM "OC" and stick with GPU & CPU Overclocking which does not ***** around like RAM does.


Over & out.


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## ThrashZone

Hi,
Did you optimize defaults before changing timings ?
Or did you stay on xmp profile and do all these changes ?


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## Sylencer90

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> Did you optimize defaults before changing timings ?
> Or did you stay on xmp profile and do all these changes ?


I did infact optimize defaults on every failed attempt.


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## shellashock

Sylencer90 said:


> Reporting back. Spent the last 3 hours to get my pc boot up into windows again. Tried your settings at first with stated voltage -> PC did not even boot into bios and instead safety switched it's bios into the backup one. Could not change anything there since it was stock default settings. After like 3-4 attempts the pc would finally start and let me into the bios. Immediately changed every setting back into auto and booted into windows to verify nothing broke my OS install.
> After that i decided to do what that other guy said "just" change primary timings to 15-15-15-35 & select 3600 mhz. My didn't boot into windows but instead went into bios and told me sth was configured incorrectly. Upped VCCIO & SA to 1.2 and Dram voltage to 1.4v - reboot again into bios - upped Dram voltage step by step on 0.1 at a time. At 1.5 the bios switched itself back on the backup one.
> 
> So at this point i said **** it and prayed to god i can get into bios again and default the **** out of it. Guess i'll remain on default XMP RAM "OC" and stick with GPU & CPU Overclocking which does not ***** around like RAM does.
> 
> 
> Over & out.


If your motherboard is being snaky with changing primaries and increasing frequency, I would recommend you try giving a bigger gap between your tCAS and your tRCDRP settings. For example, instead of 3600 15/15/15/35, try 3600 16/18/18/42 and see if you can boot. If it works, try to lower your tRCDRP to 17, test, then to 16 and see if that works. If you can "train" your mobo to go back down to 15/15/15/35 using this method (lower CAS then tRCDRP to match) and everything still boots, run a quick stress test and see if you are still stable. That should help the motherboard get over any weird secondary/tertiary training issues of jumping too far in frequency primary timings all at once. Try this with high-ish voltages of 1.4 VDIMM, 1.15V VCCSA/IO to hopefully eliminate weird IMC instability for initial testing.

Regardless of how well the above testing works for you, I recommend that you try adjusting tRFC and tREFI to about 300-350 and 30000-40000 respectively. These settings are temperature sensitive (they control how long memory cells are allowed to replenish voltage levels for/how long they can be active before needing to be replenished and voltage leakage is partially based on temperature) but they do provide large gains in performance with minimal dependency on other settings because you are increasing the amount of time the memory is allowed to be active for. You will absolutely need to stress test your memory to see if sustained load will increase memory chip temperature to the point memory errors occur, but this is one of the single biggest improvements you can make when memory overclocking without going deep into tertiary timing tuning.


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## Sylencer90

shellashock said:


> If your motherboard is being snaky with changing primaries and increasing frequency, I would recommend you try giving a bigger gap between your tCAS and your tRCDRP settings. For example, instead of 3600 15/15/15/35, try 3600 16/18/18/42 and see if you can boot. If it works, try to lower your tRCDRP to 17, test, then to 16 and see if that works. If you can "train" your mobo to go back down to 15/15/15/35 using this method (lower CAS then tRCDRP to match) and everything still boots, run a quick stress test and see if you are still stable. That should help the motherboard get over any weird secondary/tertiary training issues of jumping too far in frequency primary timings all at once. Try this with high-ish voltages of 1.4 VDIMM, 1.15V VCCSA/IO to hopefully eliminate weird IMC instability for initial testing.
> 
> Regardless of how well the above testing works for you, I recommend that you try adjusting tRFC and tREFI to about 300-350 and 30000-40000 respectively. These settings are temperature sensitive (they control how long memory cells are allowed to replenish voltage levels for/how long they can be active before needing to be replenished and voltage leakage is partially based on temperature) but they do provide large gains in performance with minimal dependency on other settings because you are increasing the amount of time the memory is allowed to be active for. You will absolutely need to stress test your memory to see if sustained load will increase memory chip temperature to the point memory errors occur, but this is one of the single biggest improvements you can make when memory overclocking without going deep into tertiary timing tuning.


Any Bios settings i should look out for, enable or disable? Im pretty sure my last attempt was screwed by some settings being on or on auto, or not on. (for example memory enhancement setting being on normal / enhanced performance)

P.S. Do i leave tRAS on 42 the whole time im "training"?


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## shellashock

Sylencer90 said:


> Any Bios settings i should look out for, enable or disable? Im pretty sure my last attempt was screwed by some settings being on or on auto, or not on. (for example memory enhancement setting being on normal / enhanced performance)
> 
> P.S. Do i leave tRAS on 42 the whole time im "training"?


I am using an ASRock Z170 OC Formula bios so I don't know anything about memory enhancement settings. You usually want all of your settings to be auto with fixed voltages while you play with the primaries and frequency to minimize the chances of not posting. I would never touch the tertiaries or RTL/IO-L settings during this phase but I usually find locking tTRP = 6 (for calculating tRAS) and tCWL = tCL helps keep tertiaries within reason until you start demanding too much from your RAM + mobo. 

As for tRAS, a good rule of thumb is tCL + tRCDRP + tRTP (+/-2). tRAS = 42 if tRTP = 6, tCL = 16 and tRCDRP = 18; hence why I suggested it to you. You can lower tRAS by this rule when changing your tCL and tRCDRP but it really shouldn't affect your stability to have an unnecessarily high tRAS. Feel free to change it or not, performance increase is minimal IIRC for lowering tRAS. IIRC, memory controllers can sometimes be stable with tRAS values lower than the "rule" expects, but this is usually a case of the memory controller transparently increasing tRAS without updating software. 


PS for the other users: I seem to remember there being an edge case with tRAS where certain lower values than the rule were not just stable but _valid_ due to some combination of advanced DRAM settings (1usmus's Ryzen Memory Tweaking article here: https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Ryzen_Memory_Tweaking_Overclocking_Guide/6.html). The comments go into further detail about this with some examples shown by 1usmus that completely break the assumption of tCL + tRCDRP + tRTP; but since most of that is way out of my depth, I am not sure if these features are present or able to be changed on Intel platforms. Is there any other source that explains these obscure settings?


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## Sylencer90

shellashock said:


> I am using an ASRock Z170 OC Formula bios so I don't know anything about memory enhancement settings. You usually want all of your settings to be auto with fixed voltages while you play with the primaries and frequency to minimize the chances of not posting. I would never touch the tertiaries or RTL/IO-L settings during this phase but I usually find locking tTRP = 6 (for calculating tRAS) and tCWL = tCL helps keep tertiaries within reason until you start demanding too much from your RAM + mobo.
> 
> As for tRAS, a good rule of thumb is tCL + tRCDRP + tRTP (+/-2). tRAS = 42 if tRTP = 6, tCL = 16 and tRCDRP = 18; hence why I suggested it to you. You can lower tRAS by this rule when changing your tCL and tRCDRP but it really shouldn't affect your stability to have an unnecessarily high tRAS. Feel free to change it or not, performance increase is minimal IIRC for lowering tRAS. IIRC, memory controllers can sometimes be stable with tRAS values lower than the "rule" expects, but this is usually a case of the memory controller transparently increasing tRAS without updating software.
> 
> 
> PS for the other users: I seem to remember there being an edge case with tRAS where certain lower values than the rule were not just stable but _valid_ due to some combination of advanced DRAM settings (1usmus's Ryzen Memory Tweaking article here: https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Ryzen_Memory_Tweaking_Overclocking_Guide/6.html). The comments go into further detail about this with some examples shown by 1usmus that completely break the assumption of tCL + tRCDRP + tRTP; but since most of that is way out of my depth, I am not sure if these features are present or able to be changed on Intel platforms. Is there any other source that explains these obscure settings?



Did 3600 with leaving rest on auto -> posted / benched fine. Did 16/17/17/42 posted also and benched fine. Went to 15/15/15/35 and also posted.

All timings done with 1.4v dram/training voltage | 1.2v vccio / sa | 

Now im running a stability test and report back. Will attach a screen with current timings and after test went fine - ill defo would like to hear if i could "easily" lower some timings.

P.S. Should i increase or lower voltage when aiming for better timings? Or is it safe to say my voltage is set fine ?



Bench with 15/15/15/35 timings & 560 tRFC / 18000 tREFI rest on auto - https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/12948022



Edit : Screenshot 2 is current timings, gave me on HCI memtest 3 errors after like 16% coverage (had 14 instances open with 2048 each) but i had twitch.tv livestream open while memory was testing, i guess that was the issues there. 

Left vccio/sa on 1.2v but increased dram/training voltage from 1.4v to 1.41V. tREFI on 20000, tRFC to 550.
Memtest64 screen after ~1 hour of testing. Ram temp was ~50-max. 57°C during the Test. Also did 30min OCCT 90% Mem Usage Stresstest. No issue there too.

So i pretty much achieved what i was aiming for - running a bit over stock XMP with gaining more performance. I'll try to gain a bit more tREFI (30000) and lower tRFC to around 400? Im sure i don't have to increase voltage for that eh?


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## shellashock

Sylencer90 said:


> Did 3600 with leaving rest on auto -> posted / benched fine. Did 16/17/17/42 posted also and benched fine. Went to 15/15/15/35 and also posted.
> 
> All timings done with 1.4v dram/training voltage | 1.2v vccio / sa |
> 
> Now im running a stability test and report back. Will attach a screen with current timings and after test went fine - ill defo would like to hear if i could "easily" lower some timings.
> 
> P.S. Should i increase or lower voltage when aiming for better timings? Or is it safe to say my voltage is set fine ?
> 
> 
> 
> Bench with 15/15/15/35 timings & 560 tRFC / 18000 tREFI rest on auto - https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/12948022
> 
> 
> 
> Edit : Screenshot 2 is current timings, gave me on HCI memtest 3 errors after like 16% coverage (had 14 instances open with 2048 each) but i had twitch.tv livestream open while memory was testing, i guess that was the issues there.
> 
> Left vccio/sa on 1.2v but increased dram/training voltage from 1.4v to 1.41V. tREFI on 20000, tRFC to 550.
> Memtest64 screen after ~1 hour of testing. Ram temp was ~50-max. 57°C during the Test. Also did 30min OCCT 90% Mem Usage Stresstest. No issue there too.
> 
> So i pretty much achieved what i was aiming for - running a bit over stock XMP with gaining more performance. I'll try to gain a bit more tREFI (30000) and lower tRFC to around 400? Im sure i don't have to increase voltage for that eh?


Well, I think that your HCI memtest error may have something to do with your cache/core voltage since you passed an hour of TPU's memtest with no issues at similar voltage (HCI memtest hammers cache + memory and overclocking memory can increase stress on the cache to the point of causing cache instability when it was otherwise stable). I have no idea how stressful TPU's memtest is, but I highly recommend you retest HCI memtest and see if it fails before you declare stability. If it does fail, try increasing your core voltage slightly and/or reducing your cache clock multiplier and see if stability improves.

I also noticed that your tRAS is 35 with a tCL of 15, tRCDRP of 15 and tRTP of 12. I recommend you lower your tRTP to 6 to stay within the tRAS = tCL + tRCDRP + tRTP +/- 2 rule. 

You could most certainly try higher tREFI and lower tRFC, but I highly recommend that you increase the airflow over your ram before you do. +50C memory temperature is not doing your memory stability any favours and will probably limit how far you can lower tRFC. Increasing any voltage likely won't help too much with lowering settings when your sticks are already (relatively) so hot. 

I'm not familiar with 16GB stick memory timings so I have no idea how good your tertiary timings, but I think you should be able to lower tRRD_L to 6 and tRRD_S to 4. If that posts fine, try lowering tFAW to 20 or 16 (as long as it is >= to 4*tRRD_S) and see how your stability is in HCI memtest (after ensuring it was stable at your current settings). After all that is done, try running Aida64 Cache/Memory Benchmark and see what your Read/Latency results are. This benchmark is a great one for measuring small changes in performance from memory settings; you just have to make sure nothing is running in the background and Windows has 0 disk activity.


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## Sylencer90

shellashock said:


> Well, I think that your HCI memtest error may have something to do with your cache/core voltage since you passed an hour of TPU's memtest with no issues at similar voltage (HCI memtest hammers cache + memory and overclocking memory can increase stress on the cache to the point of causing cache instability when it was otherwise stable). I have no idea how stressful TPU's memtest is, but I highly recommend you retest HCI memtest and see if it fails before you declare stability. If it does fail, try increasing your core voltage slightly and/or reducing your cache clock multiplier and see if stability improves.
> 
> I also noticed that your tRAS is 35 with a tCL of 15, tRCDRP of 15 and tRTP of 12. I recommend you lower your tRTP to 6 to stay within the tRAS = tCL + tRCDRP + tRTP +/- 2 rule.
> 
> You could most certainly try higher tREFI and lower tRFC, but I highly recommend that you increase the airflow over your ram before you do. +50C memory temperature is not doing your memory stability any favours and will probably limit how far you can lower tRFC. Increasing any voltage likely won't help too much with lowering settings when your sticks are already (relatively) so hot.
> 
> I'm not familiar with 16GB stick memory timings so I have no idea how good your tertiary timings, but I think you should be able to lower tRRD_L to 6 and tRRD_S to 4. If that posts fine, try lowering tFAW to 20 or 16 (as long as it is >= to 4*tRRD_S) and see how your stability is in HCI memtest (after ensuring it was stable at your current settings). After all that is done, try running Aida64 Cache/Memory Benchmark and see what your Read/Latency results are. This benchmark is a great one for measuring small changes in performance from memory settings; you just have to make sure nothing is running in the background and Windows has 0 disk activity.


The Re-Test indeed failed within like 15mins in i got 5+ errors. Okay so messing with temp sensitive settings are a no-go for now. Usually my Mem Temps are around 30-37°C.

So i guess i'll start from 15/15/15/35 Timings again, with tRTP at 6 like you said. Won't mess with any other Timings for now. But that has to wait, got some other things to do before i can get into my "freetime" again.


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## davidm71

@Sylencer90

I have the F4-3200C14D-32GTZSW Gskill kit. Its dual rank cas 14-14-14-34 3200mhz 2x16gb ram. So far stable at these settings you might want to try:

3600 mhz @ 14-15-15-35 or better 14-15-15-37 @1.45 dram volts @ VCCIO 1.2v + SA 1.24 volts. Everything else is on Auto. Turn on XMP mode though but over ride the important values.

Note you can also set a DRAM eventual training voltage at 1.460v if needed and try DDRVPP voltage @ 2.540 and DRAM Termination voltage @ 0.614 - 0.650 volts

Set all sub-timings to auto and let the motherboard figure the rest out for you.

Also check this article out: https://www.funkykit.com/reviews/memory/g-skill-trident-z-2x16gb-ddr4-3200-cl15-memory-kit-review/4/

Use a reference


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## ViTosS

For gaming is it better 4000Mhz @ 16-17-37 or 3600Mhz at 14-15-35?


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## davidm71

ViTosS said:


> For gaming is it better 4000Mhz @ 16-17-37 or 3600Mhz at 14-15-35?


Depends on the game. Some games scale with memory frequency. Those games will do better at 4000 Mhz. Also depends on the CPU. On AMD I think the 3600 Mhz cas 14 rig do better though in either case the 3600mhz cas 14 rig should be better if you believe 3600/14 is greater than 4000/16.


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## AndrejB

I tried ocing these modules on a aorus master and never got it stable.
Also if I try to boot with 3600 15-15-15-35 @1.42 it boots 3700..
Does anyone mind sharing full stable timings they got for these?


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## shellashock

AndrejB said:


> I tried ocing these modules on a aorus master and never got it stable.
> Also if I try to boot with 3600 15-15-15-35 @1.42 it boots 3700..
> Does anyone mind sharing full stable timings they got for these?


Your best bet for finding stable timings would be starting from the ground up with frequency/cl combinations and then seeing what your board sets for auto timings (tRCDRP and tRAS + secondary/tertiary timings). Once stability is confirmed for the best performing combination, slowly start working down the primary timings at a given voltage (different memory ICs and motherboards will have different limits; being patient is crucial here) until you find the stability floor. After that you can start playing with secondary/tertiary timings and RTL/IOL.

In general, you should always make backups of all your data before you begin experimenting with memory overclocking due to the high risk of data corruption or loss. Some good guides that can help you with the memory OC process include Magetank's Comprehensive Memory Overclocking Guide and IntegralFX's DDR4 OC Guide.

Assuming you are referring to the Z390 Aorus Master with your i9-9900k you mentioned in a previous thread, I haven't heard of motherboards trying to boot with a higher frequency then what you set unless you tried to activate a memory profile at the same time as you manually entered in a different freq/timing combo (subsequently overwriting your manual entry when you rebooted). In any case, you should probably check if you can get that different boot frequency to consistently happen with different freq/timing combos like 3200 14-14-14-32.

If you are looking for prebuilt profiles, the *Official* Intel DDR4 24/7 Memory Stability Thread has tons of examples; although these tend to be with higher binned memory then DDR4 3200 C14 and 2DIMM memory slot motherboards. Feel free to try them, but don't expect much due to these profiles being optimized for the user's specific sticks, motherboard and CPU combination; especially considering many of those profiles have very tight tertiary timings and RTL/IOL combinations that are specific to the motherboard's PCB layout. These are best used as a goal to aim for and compare to your motherboard's auto settings.

Be warned that with the high voltages most of these profiles require (if they are stable for you ofc), the DDR4 memory chips tend to suffer heat related instability if they aren't actively cooled with a fan. This doesn't harm the memory (40-50C @ 1.5V without a fan is common), but it can easily cause data corruption if you have a marginally stable profile that heats up over its stability threshold.

Hope this helps!


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## Falkentyne

AndrejB said:


> I tried ocing these modules on a aorus master and never got it stable.
> Also if I try to boot with 3600 15-15-15-35 @1.42 it boots 3700..
> Does anyone mind sharing full stable timings they got for these?





shellashock said:


> Your best bet for finding stable timings would be starting from the ground up with frequency/cl combinations and then seeing what your board sets for auto timings (tRCDRP and tRAS + secondary/tertiary timings). Once stability is confirmed for the best performing combination, slowly start working down the primary timings at a given voltage (different memory ICs and motherboards will have different limits; being patient is crucial here) until you find the stability floor. After that you can start playing with secondary/tertiary timings and RTL/IOL.
> 
> In general, you should always make backups of all your data before you begin experimenting with memory overclocking due to the high risk of data corruption or loss. Some good guides that can help you with the memory OC process include Magetank's Comprehensive Memory Overclocking Guide and IntegralFX's DDR4 OC Guide.
> 
> Assuming you are referring to the Z390 Aorus Master with your i9-9900k you mentioned in a previous thread, I haven't heard of motherboards trying to boot with a higher frequency then what you set unless you tried to activate a memory profile at the same time as you manually entered in a different freq/timing combo (subsequently overwriting your manual entry when you rebooted). In any case, you should probably check if you can get that different boot frequency to consistently happen with different freq/timing combos like 3200 14-14-14-32.
> 
> If you are looking for prebuilt profiles, the *Official* Intel DDR4 24/7 Memory Stability Thread has tons of examples; although these tend to be with higher binned memory then DDR4 3200 C14 and 2DIMM memory slot motherboards. Feel free to try them, but don't expect much due to these profiles being optimized for the user's specific sticks, motherboard and CPU combination; especially considering many of those profiles have very tight tertiary timings and RTL/IOL combinations that are specific to the motherboard's PCB layout. These are best used as a goal to aim for and compare to your motherboard's auto settings.
> 
> Be warned that with the high voltages most of these profiles require (if they are stable for you ofc), the DDR4 memory chips tend to suffer heat related instability if they aren't actively cooled with a fan. This doesn't harm the memory (40-50C @ 1.5V without a fan is common), but it can easily cause data corruption if you have a marginally stable profile that heats up over its stability threshold.
> 
> Hope this helps!


It's a bug.
It was reported originally with the Aorus Xtreme, where 3600 mhz tried to set it to 3700 mhz


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## shellashock

Falkentyne said:


> It's a bug.
> It was reported originally with the Aorus Xtreme, where 3600 mhz tried to set it to 3700 mhz


Ah, that makes sense. Is that specifically for 3600 Mhz (increasing to 3700) or is this an example of Gigabyte's bios trying to change unstable settings to a *known stable* setting from a lookup table? I'm not really familiar with Gigabyte motherboards and I hear they have a lot of auto correction stuff in their bios whenever things fail to post.


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## Dsrt

Im having issue with my B-die Samsung DDR4. Im unable to hit safe clocks of 3200Mhz calculated by DRAM calculator. Even going up to 1.4 volts the memory wont boot.
Ive imported the timing information from Thaiphoon Burner. No OC applied the the cpu while trying to tighten the timings. The XMP (DOCP) profile works fine @ specified 1.35v.

Memory: G-Skill TrindentZ RGB F4-3200C16D-16GTZR
Motherboard: Asus X570 Crosshair VIII Hero
CPU: 3900X

The question is that should I just accept that I cant tighten the timings at all or just go even higher with the voltage? Or is there something else that I should try to do


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## AndrejB

Dsrt said:


> Im having issue with my B-die Samsung DDR4. Im unable to hit safe clocks of 3200Mhz calculated by DRAM calculator. Even going up to 1.4 volts the memory wont boot.
> Ive imported the timing information from Thaiphoon Burner. No OC applied the the cpu while trying to tighten the timings. The XMP (DOCP) profile works fine @ specified 1.35v.
> 
> Memory: G-Skill TrindentZ RGB F4-3200C16D-16GTZR
> Motherboard: Asus X570 Crosshair VIII Hero
> CPU: 3900X
> 
> The question is that should I just accept that I cant tighten the timings at all or just go even higher with the voltage? Or is there something else that I should try to do


I'm in the process of learning and found this regarding asus boards:
https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthre...verclocking-memory-without-increasing-voltage

This is from this guide: 
https://github.com/integralfx/MemTestHelper/blob/master/DDR4 OC Guide.md

Regarding these modules I got them pretty stable at 3800 16-17-17-36 @ 1.4v
Edit: nvm not stable even on 18-18-18-38


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## Sylencer90

Sorry for necro'ing this thread up again. I couldn't be bothered to tinker with my Kit so i straight went for a new kit and bought it LOL. 

Got me this one for rather cheap (350 €) https://www.gskill.com/qvl/165/326/1569304123/F4-3600C14Q-32GTZNB-Qvl 

Hopefully switching from 2 ram sticks to 4 won't cause too much of an issue. If they're good i just sell my old ones for a decent amount.

Was thinking about these ones: https://www.gskill.com/product/165/...GBDDR4-4000MHz-CL15-16-16-36-1.50V32GB-(4x8GB) but sadly my mainboard is not on the QVL List for the 4000Mhzs one, so i don't really want to risk it here.


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## AndrejB

Sylencer90 said:


> Sorry for necro'ing this thread up again. I couldn't be bothered to tinker with my Kit so i straight went for a new kit and bought it LOL.
> 
> Got me this one for rather cheap (350 â‚¬) https://www.gskill.com/qvl/165/326/1569304123/F4-3600C14Q-32GTZNB-Qvl
> 
> Hopefully switching from 2 ram sticks to 4 won't cause too much of an issue. If they're good i just sell my old ones for a decent amount.
> 
> Was thinking about these ones: https://www.gskill.com/product/165/...GBDDR4-4000MHz-CL15-16-16-36-1.50V32GB-(4x8GB) but sadly my mainboard is not on the QVL List so i don't really want to risk it here.


You didn't mention which board you have.

In any case, I did the same, got another kit. But I got a kit that lists my board.

In this case xmp may not work, properly.


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## Sylencer90

AndrejB said:


> You didn't mention which board you have.
> 
> In any case, I did the same, got another kit. But I got a kit that lists my board.
> 
> In this case xmp may not work, properly.


Isn't it in my Signature or in the 1st Post? Im almost positive i wrote it down since this is "my" thread lol.
Anyways: Z390 Aorus Pro (F12d Bios). Shows up in the QVL List on G.Skills Site but sadly not on the List from my Board but i highly assume they just don't bother maintaining Z390 Boards anymore, especially documentation.


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## AndrejB

Sylencer90 said:


> Isn't it in my Signature or in the 1st Post? Im almost positive i wrote it down since this is "my" thread lol.
> Anyways: Z390 Aorus Pro (F12d Bios).


Ah it is. Sorry on mobile.

Honestly these are high end sticks that were tested only on high boards, notice how they didn't even try gigabyte.
I can't say with certainty if xmp will be stable, if I remember correctly the auros pro only got 3866 stable.

You can search the ddr4 stability thread for your board to see.

I have these on the z390 master:
https://www.gskill.com/qvl/165/166/1536563595/F4-4000C17Q-32GTZR-Qvl

Your board isn't even on the qvl for these, so I'm not too hopeful


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## kenshinsars

@Sylencer90 that kit is NOT b-die ! Burner reports c-die kits as b-die. my Royals report as b-die, they are not, they are c-die kits, that is why you are having issue overclocking them, and c-die kits do not like being hit with voltages higher than 1.35v, they operate and overclock best at voltages between 1.3-1.35v, hitting them with higher voltages will certainly kill


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## Arctucas

I have this kit currently installed. https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-16gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820232194

Was able to clock to 4500MHZ.

Currently @ 1.36VDIMM.


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## Falkentyne

kenshinsars said:


> @Sylencer90 that kit is NOT b-die ! Burner reports c-die kits as b-die. my Royals report as b-die, they are not, they are c-die kits, that is why you are having issue overclocking them, and c-die kits do not like being hit with voltages higher than 1.35v, they operate and overclock best at voltages between 1.3-1.35v, hitting them with higher voltages will certainly kill


Since when is "F4-3200C14D-32GTZR" not b-die?
They are 14-14-14-34. All kits with these timings are b-die.
Even https://benzhaomin.github.io/bdiefinder/ has those exact same kits listed as b-die. The dual rank 2x16 GB kits.
If these are c-die with b-die timings, you just completely broke the internet. And I don't believe you broke the internet. 

Your kits are 16-18-18-38.


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## bluechris

Falkentyne said:


> Since when is "F4-3200C14D-32GTZR" not b-die?
> 
> They are 14-14-14-34. All kits with these timings are b-die.
> 
> Even https://benzhaomin.github.io/bdiefinder/ has those exact same kits listed as b-die. The dual rank 2x16 GB kits.
> 
> If these are c-die with b-die timings, you just completely broke the internet. And I don't believe you broke the internet.
> 
> 
> 
> Your kits are 16-18-18-38.


I have 2 pairs of the same F4-3200C14D-32GTZ (4x16gb) without RGB and they are bdie for sure.
I have them working fine at 3800cl14 14 14 28 with 1.55v but i went a bit back at 3733cl14 with 1.5v for 3 months now (its a esxi Homelab server).


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## fra z

F4-3200C14D-32GTZR <<<< to original poster - From what I've learned these will be B-Die. I've found this Typhoon Burner application that reports all details of the DIMM softnology.biz/

If this was to report inaccurate information it would mean a serious flaw in the app! -


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