New Crossblade Ranger Owner (I have a few questions)

[robertotaylor]

How's it going guys. I've been out of the loop in the computer scene for quite a few yearsnow, but I just recently upgraded my system, and I have a couple of questions that I would love to get some help with.

First off, I'll start with my setup:

- Asus Crossblade Ranger Motherboard
- AMD A10-7850K Kaveri APU (Stock CPU Cooler)
- 8GB AMD Radeon R9 Gamer Series RAM (2 x 4GB) DDR3 2400 (PC19200) - Installed now
- 16GB AMD Radeon R9 Gamer Series RAM (2 x 8GB) DDR3 2400 (PC19200) - Arriving Monday
- XFX AMD Radeon HD 7770 Black Edition Video Card
- OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD (will be replaced with Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD next week)
- Western Digital Green 1TB HDD
- Thermaltake TR2 700W Power Supply
- Rosewill Thor v2 Case
- Microsoft Windows 8.1 Professional

So I just put my system together last night, and I was very happy to have it boot up without any issues on the first try, and everything seems to be working great. I think I'll finally be able to start doing some gaming again.

Here are some of the questions I have:

1. In the BIOS, my RAM isn't running at 2400Mhz. Is it safe to bump it up to the 2400Mhz without experiencing any problems?
2. I currently only have 2 x 4GB sticks installed, but I'm getting an additional 2 x 8GB sticks on Monday.In which order should I install all 4 sticks of RAM?
3. What is a safe and stable OC speed for this particular APU? I hear these APU's run a bit warm. What cooler do you recommend I use to replace the stock one?
4. I have never used crossfire on a system before. Can I crossfire my XFX video card with the on-board video and improve my graphics? If so, how would I do that?

I think those are all the questions I can think of at the moment. If anyone has any hints or pointers as to what I can do with the hardware I have, I would really appreciate it.

Thank you,

Roberto

[robertotaylor]

So it looks like my system doesn't like overclocking the RAM to 2400mHz. It will only let me overclock it successfully to 2133mHz. Also, I couldn't find where I can set the AMP/XMP profile.

[Distrikt]

1. In the BIOS, my RAM isn't running at 2400Mhz. Is it safe to bump it up to the 2400Mhz without experiencing any problems? You may have to set overclocking to D.O.C.P. in the bios in order to get your RAM to run at 2400Mhz.

2. I currently only have 2 x 4GB sticks installed, but I'm getting an additional 2 x 8GB sticks on Monday.In which order should I install all 4 sticks of RAM? I would just use the 16GB of RAM, should be plenty.

3. What is a safe and stable OC speed for this particular APU? I hear these APU's run a bit warm. What cooler do you recommend I use to replace the stock one? All depends. I am currently running my 7850K @4.4Ghz stable for daily use, Have had it as high as 4.6Ghz stable though for benchmarking. As for cooling a decent AiO watercooling setup will keep the APU at decent temps when overclocked.

4. I have never used crossfire on a system before. Can I crossfire my XFX video card with the on-board video and improve my graphics? If so, how would I do that? For crossfire would would need to get another 7770, The only way to run in dual graphics mode using your APU is to use and R7 card such as an R7 250, anything higher is not compatible(at this time).

[robertotaylor]

Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it.

[Akaimahomiru]

I got mine running at 2400, thru the BIOS with manual settings and used 2 8 gig sticks of G.SKILL Trident X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2400 (PC3 19200) Desktop Memory Model F3-2400C10D-16GTX, the auto adjust will set it lower, that's the norm for factory out. It's a pain but it is doable and it took me almost 3 hrs to fine tune it till the BIOS let me launch into windows and no BSOD's

As far as Crossfire goes, HD 7770 or like the above have said a 250 will suffice, I have got a higher end card in atm (took out the old card), they wont link together atm so only running off the higher card. That will change however when DX12 comes out as you will be able to link multiple families and SLI to Crossfire cards without the need for even a link cable.