Overclocking RAM...

[Shyatic]

I have two sticks of Kingston Hyper-X PC4000 ram that I got really cheap. I am reading about overclocking the RAM, but what's the benefit of doing this, and HOW would I go about doing it? Does it require any cooling or anything like that do to it?

Thanks in advance, appreciate your help!

 

[Ionizer86]

You have to bump up the front side bus on your computer. If you run the bus and the ram at the same speed, the ram will go faster. You souldn't require more cooling since running electronics at a higher speed doesn't cause much more heat, whereas increasing the voltage usually creates a good amount more heat. Only if it's unstable will you need to bump up the ram (or processor or chipset)'s voltage.

 

[Shyatic]

What are the benefits of OCing RAM? I never really understood what benefit speedy RAM gives over just having a helluva lot of it

 

[Shyatic]

And how do I 'bump up' the FSB on my PC? I am getting a new AMD64 on monday, so any help is appreciated

 

[sisooktom]

Generally speaking, the CPU spends a lot of time waiting on data from RAM. Faster RAM = less cycles spent waiting.

 

[azndelite6983]

Originally posted by: Scribe
And how do I 'bump up' the FSB on my PC? I am getting a new AMD64 on monday, so any help is appreciated

The BIOS should give you options of your CPU multiplier (which will probably be locked) and your fsb. Remember that your cpu's speed in MHz is the product of your multiplier and your fsb. As long as your RAM and cpu are in 1:1 mode, as you increase your fsb speed to oc your cpu, the fsb on your RAM will increase the same amount. In general this is how people oc their RAM.

It is also possible to change the RAM latency timings and the DDR voltage. However, unless you've done it before or are faced with an unstable system, I would NOT recommend touching either of these settings.

 

[edmundoab]

I think the ram sink should be sufficient for overclocking.
Make sure to have decent air flow in your casing.

The question is why overclock?
To boost performance.

the Voltage of Vcore and Vdimm will be essential to play around with when you overclock.

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

faster ram = more bandwidth for data, it also boosts the speed on the onboard CPU cache which yields overall performance(this is asuming you do it all with a 1:1 cpu/ram ratio)

 

[Runner20]

I'm a big gamer, but I have never overclocked and probably never will. *PROBABLY*

If you have a very fast processor, like say, an AMD 64 3200+ or Pentium 4 3.2 HT, why in the world would you overclock? Your warranty would be voided if your parts go bust due to your overclocking.

In my humble opinion, overclocking is not a good idea for the most part.

 

[Pauli]

"Overclocking" your RAM simply means that you're running the system bus (FSB) faster than the memory is rated for. Since your memory is rated for 250MHz FSB (PC4000 or DDR500), you really aren't overclocking your RAM until you go past that speed. I doubt your new A64 will allow you to go even that high, so you really can't overclock your RAM in that system.

By looking at your posts, I think you have a basic misunderstanding of RAM and what it means to overclock it. RAM doesn't have it's own speed -- it has a speed rating. The motherboard settings determine the speed of the system. The RAM will either run at that speed or it won't. It's "speed" is entirely dependent on what the motherboard is set to run at.

The interesting thing here is that there are no "officially supported" motherboard chipsets that even support anything higher than 200MHz FSB. So, if you run your system above 200MHz FSB, you are overclocking your A64 and your chipset, i.e. running them higher than specified by the manufacturer.