Crosshair V Formula-Z Questions Tweaking ddr3-2133 Memory

[Jape213]

Mobo: Croshair V Formula-Z
CPU: FX 8350
RAM: GSkill Ripjaws X F3-17000CL11D-8GBXL times 2, so 16GB (4x 4GB)

Dear People at ROG,

Im a bit of a n00b when it comes to things like this, but i have some questions regarding my system memory.
My main goal atm is to run my memory as fast as possible. I realize that the speed of the memory is limited by
how fast ur CPU can support it, and i believe the FX8350 supports memory up to 1866 MHz.
The memory i have can run stock on 2133 Mhz. I purposely bought them so if i would overclock, the memory wouldnt be a bottleneck.
Atm i have made no specific changes to the BIOS, only as you see in pic1, the memory frequency set to 2133MHz instead of auto.
I could understand if this wouldnt have any effect, or take some more tweaking before the memory would speed up.
Or maybe it isnt possible at all? But, what i also dont understand is when you look at the pics attached, that the screens made from
the BIOS and CPU-Z totally give different readings from each other regarding bandwith and frequency.
If someone would enlighten me, please do so. Any information is welcome.
And someone know how i could get the best performance out of this memory?
Do i need to overclock the CPU and/or the Northbridge?

[MeanMachine]

Hi Jape213 and Welcome to ROG 🙂

From what I read, you have 2 x kits of 8GB DIMMs, not a good idea, as even identical spect kits put together, can be problematic.
Best to have one single kit 2x8 or 4x4, that have been tested. They may or may not work together without issue.

Your XMP #1@2134 set in Bios to 9-9-9-24 at 1.6v is what I would go for. Go to DRAM timing control in Bios and manually set primary timings as per your XMP profile.
You will not see drastic improvement whilst gaming but slightly better results when benchmarking.

Other Tweaks for performance can be gained also from your CPU and with adequate cooling, your FX-8350 can be overclocked to 4.8GHz.
Other Tweaks re: frequency of NB/HT and DIGI+ Power Control may be necessary for stability.

MM

[Jape213]

Thanks Mean Machine,

I will look into the XMP profiles tomorrow, i guess they are unique for every stick of RAM?
But will the different readings be solved then? Or isit because of the different pairs of RAM i have in it now?
I prolly do some overclocking on the cpu, but that is not what i need atm, and even though im gonna do that eventually, first i wanna have my
memory sorted out, and maybe make them run a bit faster. But the different readings are bothering me the most. 3DMark for example,
says the bandwith is 800MHz...

Thanks for the reply aswell !

[MeanMachine]

Jape213 wrote:
Thanks Mean Machine,


But will the different readings be solved then? Or is it because of the different pairs of RAM i have in it now?!

Probably not. Some benchmark applications do read differently, so don't concern yourself too much with that. CPU-Z is what counts.