It's old but is it still good.

[JordanMihailov]

Can i overclock that memory and if yes, is it worth it?
Corsair vengeance ddr3 1600 cl9 low profile.

 

[Elixer]

You could, but is it worth it? If you benchmark, otherwise, not really, except for very few applications.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

You could, but is it worth it? If you benchmark, otherwise, not really, except for very few applications.

Unless you really have an itch for it, it's not worth the trouble when you can simply buy 1866 or 2133 RAM. Is this a configuration of 2 RAM slots or 4?

We had some G.SKILL "-GBRL" 1600 9-9-9-24 in two kits or four modules. You could actually overclock those to a stable 1866 with CAS 10. This seemed almost unusual, because you'd have better luck OC'ing RAM in only two slots.

Sure, the benchmarks were slightly better. Sometimes, you could even imagine that it "felt" faster. But if you have some software or hardware problem with your system, overclocked components multiply the troubleshooting time and trouble. You find yourself asking "is it this or that cause? or is it the overclocked [RAM, graphics, CPU].

If you want faster RAM, I'd just buy a set. Nothing wrong with keeping the 1600's, either.

 

[Shmee]

What is the CPU and motherboard? Some systems benefit more from fast DDR3 than others.

 

[MongGrel]

You could, but is it worth it? If you benchmark, otherwise, not really, except for very few applications.

I'd imagine it would be along these lines.

 

[JordanMihailov]

Z97 extreme 4 is the MB. CPU 4790k

 

[DrMrLordX]

Be careful if you try giving your RAM more than 1.5v on Haswell. You can burn out the IMC unless you know what you are doing.

Actually that's true of a lot of modern CPUs, but still . . .

edit: also, unless you manage to get those timings way down, you probably won't see much benefit. If buying new RAM is in your budget, I'd look at something like this:

http://pcpartpicker.com/product/QzqdnQ/a-data-memory-ax3u2400w8g11dgv

Assuming you don't need to keep the low profile RAM and that you can figure out how to feed those sticks 1.65v without difficulty. Anyway that should have similar-to-identical ICs to what I have in my Silicon Power DDR3-2400 sticks. They do DDR3-1600 CAS/CL7 when underclocked, and they can also do DDR3-2400 CAS/CL10 when overvolted.

 

[Valantar]

What exactly are you hoping to gain from this? The vast majority of applications and games care very, very little about memory speed. Leave it alone until you eventually upgrade your motherboard.

This, btw, is coming from someone still running 8GB of DDR2-1066. Just FYI.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

What exactly are you hoping to gain from this? The vast majority of applications and games care very, very little about memory speed. Leave it alone until you eventually upgrade your motherboard.

This, btw, is coming from someone still running 8GB of DDR2-1066. Just FYI.

JEE-SUSS! Even I . . . would feel outgunned and ashamed! [jus' kiddin'!! Or don' take it pers'nally . . ]

But I now have what seem like "old" machines -- Sandy and Ivy -- running with at least DDR3-1600. I've even got "spare kits!"

 

[Valantar]

JEE-SUSS! Even I . . . would feel outgunned and ashamed! [jus' kiddin'!! Or don' take it pers'nally . . ]

But I now have what seem like "old" machines -- Sandy and Ivy -- running with at least DDR3-1600. I've even got "spare kits!"

I feel neither outgunned nor ashamed - I'm more proud that I've managed to keep it alive for this long (the X48 chipset and southbridge run HOT!), and that it still somehow performs passably well. I'm upgrading it this spring, but hot damn, this was one good investment back in 2008.

 

[ronbo613]

I feel neither outgunned nor ashamed - I'm more proud that I've managed to keep it alive for this long (the X48 chipset and southbridge run HOT!), and that it still somehow performs passably well. I'm upgrading it this spring, but hot damn, this was one good investment back in 2008.

Spending less money to do your work is never something to be ashamed of. Neither is keeping computer parts out of landfills. Not being wasteful is a life skill that should be admired. As long as the gear you have does the job, there is no logical reason for replacement.

 

[JordanMihailov]

What exactly are you hoping to gain from this? The vast majority of applications and games care very, very little about memory speed. Leave it alone until you eventually upgrade your motherboard.

This, btw, is coming from someone still running 8GB of DDR2-1066. Just FYI.

Just wanted to see if i can get some more performance out of it and if it is worth it.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I feel neither outgunned nor ashamed - I'm more proud that I've managed to keep it alive for this long (the X48 chipset and southbridge run HOT!), and that it still somehow performs passably well. I'm upgrading it this spring, but hot damn, this was one good investment back in 2008.

Oh -- that all makes total sense, no less per the response from ronbo613.

I've replaced all my systems built before 2011, although I'm running a 2007 motherboard release for my server. The actual hardware was a spare motherboard and some RAM with now about 3+ years of mileage.

I feel the same way about my first Sandy Bridge system, now hibernating up in Moms' room. That one is coming up on 6 years, I've run a stress-test shakedown on the overclock, and it hasn't changed in all that time. The PSU is equally as old -- a 750W Seasonic X-series Gold. I haven't detected any change at all.

It's overkill for Moms, but it's easy to administer, so . . .

As for JordanMihailov, that's understandable.

Maybe I already said it, and our colleagues can yawn -- I understand.

You could try and get those Corsairs to run at 1866 with loosened timings. Personally, rather than take a lot of time, trouble and risk, I'd go out on the web and look for two things: The specs on what is essentially the same model-line of Vengeance(?) RAM but spec'd at 1866, and discussions of folks who made that successful overclock and their settings.

Again, the problem with this on the newer motherboards and chipsets arises with the XMP profiles. You won't know what the secondary timings should be, while an XMP profile may set them more aggressively than non-XMP default (1333 for yours, if I remember incorrectly). I'd just as soon spend the bucks and get a replacement kit if I really, really, really bigly-big-league want to run at a higher speed. And at this stage of the game, I wouldn't bother with that.

If it's an 8GB kit and you have two slots still vacant, you might want to find an identical matching kit, run everything at spec. You don't NEED 16GB, but there are ways to USE 16GB.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Spending less money to do your work is never something to be ashamed of. Neither is keeping computer parts out of landfills. Not being wasteful is a life skill that should be admired. As long as the gear you have does the job, there is no logical reason for replacement.

Well spoken. Now I feel bad. I was trying to "re-use" my (old) main desktop rig, in an ATX case, by selling it to a friend of mine. Finally convinced him that a G4560 was 3x faster in ST speed, than his Athlon II X4.

He did say, some time during the discussion, "maybe I should keep my old rig and use it until it dies". I told him that I wouldn't hold it against him if he wanted to do that, LOL.

Anyways, I gave him a 14-day trial period to use the new (to him) rig. Hopefully he likes it. I'm getting $500 for it (less than parts cost), over about two years. (Yeah, installment plan.)

Of course, if he does keep it, then that brings into question what to do with his old rig.

 

[Valantar]

For some reason I can't quote messages right now (I just get some php error), so I'll have to do this by hand. Let's do the on-topic reply first

Just wanted to see if i can get some more performance out of it and if it is worth it.

Can you get more performance out of it? Possibly some measurable increase, yes. An actual noticeable increase in any day-to-day workload? I sincerely doubt it. It might be a fun project, though. Fiddling with computer hardware to make it run better is one of my favourite ways of wasting time, at least

Spending less money to do your work is never something to be ashamed of. Neither is keeping computer parts out of landfills. Not being wasteful is a life skill that should be admired. As long as the gear you have does the job, there is no logical reason for replacement.

That's my philosophy exactly. I've always tried to not be wasteful, but that dedication has risen to a whole new level after taking a media ecology course during my masters studies. Some pretty pioneering research done by a couple of my now-colleagues here at the university, studying the environmental impact of the media technologies that surround us (and how this impact is largely made invisible and ultimately viewed through a culturally defined lens of modern technology being innately "clean" and the internet/digital technology somehow being immaterial).

Simple facts like the production of a 1-gram IC often producing up to 30kg of waste material, that's the kind of sh*t that makes me truly scared of what we're doing to our planet. Not to mention that the vast majority of "electronics waste management" means "ship it to central Africa, have poor people smash and burn it to extract non-combustible parts, watch them die a slow and painful death, and buy the remaining copper and other metals at dirt-cheap prices." Or that there are no regulations (at least that are actually enforced) on chemical waste disposal in most of Asia. Electronics, and especially the current trend of replacing hardware as often as possible, has an enormous impact on the environment. It just happens far enough away that most of us can't see it.

Is a perspective like this hard to reconcile with being a computer hardware enthusiast? Absolutely. But it's worth it. It's not like not replacing stuff just because you can is in any way a bad thing, after all. Saves money, saves the environment, and quite a few studies show that impulse control and planned purchasing behaviour are related to mental well-being. I'll gladly take that over having a new GPU each year.

...

Frankly, I'm shocked that this setup is still running. When I built it, I cooled the CPU with a 120mm liquid cooling kit, which at one point leaked onto my GPU when I was moving the computer. Nothing broke, but that freaked me out enough to buy a some no-name HSF and call it a day. I apparently didn't have the intelligence to google how to OC my CPU back then, so I ran it at the motherboard's "CPU Level Up" function as a Q9650 (3GHz IIRC). I didn't truly try to OC it until I bought a Hyper 212 Evo last year, and did the 5-minute research necessary to dial in my current 3,52GHz overclock.

Also, when I bought my Fury X last year, my old PSU (2008-era Cooler Master 850W something-or-other, came with my old Stacker 830) died during an overnight stress testing session. The EVGA 750W G2 that I replaced it with then up and died (blew a transistor (I believe) with quite a loud pop and a bit of smoke, subsequently triggered the circuit breaker every time it was connected to the mains) within two days. And still not a single piece of hardware broke alongside this. Everything works perfectly. Either I have some very odd luck, or the power delivery in the ROG Rampage Formula X48 is exceptionally well built.

Recently, I had a few unexpected shutdowns while gaming, with the BIOS giving me a "Southbridge Overheat warning" when rebooting. Haven't seen it since I stuck three more fans into my case, although the PC is no longer anywhere near quiet. Oh well. The SB is very hot (the heatsink is painful to touch) even in the BIOS, so something seems to be up with it. Still works, though. Perhaps it's related to the two PCIe USB 3.0/3.1 controllers I added recently? IDK if the PCIe lanes in the X48 chipset run off the north- or southbridge. I'll probably look into that after I upgrade, see if I can re-purpose the hardware for some other use. Should probably replace the thermal pads for all the chipset and power delivery cooling anyhow.


...now, enough OT rambling from me.