RAM voltage

[jordanpr]

Read the title and summary. Why do I need to know the voltage on RAM and how does it apply when constructing/configuring/building a new computer.

 

[Varun]

Unless you are overclocking the RAM, you generally don't need to know anything about the voltage as the stock voltages are generally fine.

Different RAM technologies (SD, DDR, DDR2, etc) all take different voltages, but that won't mean anything either as they all have different physical slots so that you can't put the wrong one in anyways.

The only time you may care about RAM voltage is if you have some system instability, and you diagnose it as RAM. Bumping the voltage up 0.1-0.2V can cure this depending on the issue.

 

[jordanpr]

So say I was to overclock, then what would I need to know about the voltage?

 

[KayKay]

Originally posted by: jordanpr
So say I was to overclock, then what would I need to know about the voltage?

know the limit for your memory. Setting your ram voltage too high will ultimately fry your memory.

The voltage should be changed when you are overclocking your memory and you find that the memory is failing memtest / system instability. Adjusting the voltage by small increments may benefit you.

What I am doing with my memory, is i actually have a fairly powerful 92 mm fan cooling my ram, as it is running at 3.3 V (stock 2.8) 24/7, which has been quite effective

 

[Davegod]

the faster the chips operate the more leakage (kind of like interference) you get on the electrical signals, bumping up the voltage compensates for the leakage but increases the amount of heat.

An oversimplification but that's basically it.

 

[Noubourne]

You'll want to check mobo options too. For instance, OCZ Gold and other RAM that uses BH-5 chips are well known to crank up very high at low latencies. They're also well-known to require voltages that are suicide on other sticks of RAM to do it. It is possible to buy a motherboard that isn't capable of pushing this particular type of RAM to the limit, because the BIOS won't allow you to push more than 2.9 or 3.0v, and the sticks tend to like more than that (pretty sure I've seen people running them at 3.2+ pretty consisently for DDR600 speeds). There are good motherboards out there that allow it, but if you're going to shell out for fast RAM like that, it's good to know if you've got the mobo to get your money's worth out of it.

 

[acegazda]

What kind of chip does the ocz platinum use? What about patriot ddr500?