Overclocking Question

[Siryak]

Ok here is my situation. I know enough about overclocking to know what the values do, I just don't really have the patience to sit there and tweak them. So I am using the Asus auto tune in the BIOS to overclock. When I use the better performance tune it overclocks somewhere around 3.3-3.4GHz.(It is a Core i5 760) Anyway when I use the Turbo overclock it gets the clock up to 3.6GHz. The thing that is puzzling me is it is actually downclocking my RAM on the Turbo overclock. On the Better Performance tune it was getting around 1890 out of my G.Skill Ripjaws 1600.(With the voltage at 1.65v) Now with the Turbo overclock it is turned down to 1540 at 1.5v. Now I think the logic here is it turned the RAM down to get a better overclock on the processor, but I am not sure. Should I go ahead and at least turn the RAM up to the RAMs specs at 1600 or is this going to make my system unstable? I am thinking it turned it down for a reason I am just not sure.

 

[jiminator]

you can crank the memory up, but it will have the effect of further overclocking the processor, which may or may not work for you. there are some 3 factors that go into the cpu speed, first fsb which is kind of the overall clock, then cpu multiplier, which is likely locked for higher multipliers, and the memory dividers, which is a ratio against at which to run the memory. basically you can increase the fsb until the memory gets flaky, then you increase the divider ratio, which has the effect of downclocking the memory. I think that is called a strap. some dividers don't work so well, so there is a lot of experimentation involved. There are a lot of other factors, so this is only a simplistic explanation, and the info is probably out of date for i5/i7 line.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

so with your overclock the ram is running at 1890 but when the turbo mode kicks in its automatically downclocking the ram to 1540? am i reading that correctly?

if it was me i would just lock the multiplier to what ever your turbo mode multiplier is and leave it running at 3.6ghz. should be able to do that in the bios. so your ram will always be at 1890 and your processor will run at 3.6ghz instead of waiting for the turbo mode to kick in.

 

[Siryak]

No the Asus motherboard has 3 lvls you can set the auto tune overclock to in the BIOS. There is Good Performance, Better Performance, and Turbo Performance. So Turbo is supposed to be the overclock that pushes it the highest. When I use better performance it overclocks the RAM to 1890 and turns the voltage up to 1600. When I set it to auto tune on the Turbo setting it downclocks the RAM, but in the end achieved a higher overclock on the processor.

Basically what the auto tune does is it gradually turns up the setting automatically until it becomes unstable and then turns it back to the last stable overclock. It is done in the BIOS though instead of an in OS overclock.