XMP RAM Profile

Mesolithic

M
Just a heads-up for those who don't know, but your Ram might have an XMP profile which you can enable in your bios.

I have done this and although my Asus board has reduced the overclock on my cpu (4.22 to 4.10ghz) the improved memory performance has improved the VR performance in ED.

Google search xmp for better instructions on enabling it.

Regards

Meso
 

mahoon

mahoon
I'm in two minds about XMP profiles and RAM overclocking in general - mine can go from 2133 to 2400 and sometimes I activate the XMP and everything's groovy and I convince myself that life is so much smoother. Then I get a crash and, though probably completely unconnected, I remove the profile. And the community seems split between 'You won't notice the increase when gaming' and 'Cor blimey! My rig is like lightning!'. After reading your post, I did, indeed, head for the BIOS and switched on the XMP profile and fired up ED. It did seem smoother than when I was playing 15mins previous. Maybe it's all in the mind, but even if that's the case, I'm happy to go along with my perceived increased smoothness. Until the next crash at least :)
 

Mesolithic

M
Might want to check your cooling as it will generate more heat, which is why I think it has dialed back the cpu on my PC, but it is definitely less choppy upon exiting supercruise and the ASW is kicking in less in stations with XMP enabled.

As with all this stuff, your mileage may vary :)

Meso
 

Para Handy

Para Handy
You know I never even thought about this. I have 2 sticks of Crucial Vengeance DDR4 @ 3200MHz in my PC and it never occurred to me to actually check what speed they were running at. I know "Speccy" shows 1600 but I thought that was just it's reporting (it also shows my 8GB 1070 as having 4GB) being crap not very good but checking with CPU-Z it shows only 1600MHz too.

Is this just reporting a base speed?

Should I actually go into the BIOS and have a tweek? - I am reluctant to muck about as everything is running just fine.
 

dape

dape
MalcYorks said:
You know I never even thought about this. I have 2 sticks of Crucial Vengeance DDR4 @ 3200MHz in my PC and it never occurred to me to actually check what speed they were running at. I know "Speccy" shows 1600 but I thought that was just it's reporting (it also shows my 8GB 1070 as having 4GB) being crap not very good but checking with CPU-Z it shows only 1600MHz too.

Is this just reporting a base speed?

Should I actually go into the BIOS and have a tweek? - I am reluctant to muck about as everything is running just fine.
Click to expand...

the DD in DDR stands for DoubleData. Whatever CPU-Z shows for your Ram speed multiply it by 2. So your Ram runs at 3200. But doublecheck in the BIOS to be 100% sure.
 

Asp Explorer

Asp Explorer
Be careful about enabling XMP profiles in BIOS if your motherboard also has a XMP mode physical switch / jumper - you'll get extremely weird results if they are not both set correctly.
 

Kingtutuk

Kingtutuk
If all is working to your liking then i would leave it alone. No point in adjusting your Bios Ram settings as you could well end up with a blank screen or an order for replacement Ram.
 

mahoon

mahoon
And this is why I'm on the fence when it comes to overclocked RAM. Set mine to 2400 after being reminded by it by OP. All ran great until yesterday (22.07) when, after a long gaming session, Chrome started showing odd pixel colours on my theme background every time I opened it. - small patches of flashing, or wrong-coloured pixels. Could be a number of other things, but resetting back to native 2133 RAM stopped it immediately. I can't honestly say I noticed any difference in the games I subsequently played.
 

Night Hawk

Night Hawk
From my experience XMP profiles are not enabled in the BIOS by default, so buying faster more expensive RAM is a waste of money if you don't check and set your RAM to its fastest speed.

I recommend using CPU Z - select the Memory tab to check what speed and timings are applied to your RAM.

Next, check the SPD tab and select the appropriate Memory Slot number ( 1 to 4) that you have RAM installed in - if the details under the SPD tab are blank, select another memory slot until you get some setting data.

Have a look at the details in the Timing section. It should provide information on what frequency and settings are available for the particular RAM you have installed - mine has 4 timing tables, including 2 XMP tables.

You can easily determine which XMP profiles can be used for your RAM - and apply this setting in your BIOS.

Also note that some preset XMP profiles can be unstable and it is sometimes better to manually configure the RAM frequency and timings in the BIOS, as per the XMP table.

Once you have setup your RAM, I suggest using a testing or benchmarking program to test for any stability issues - I use a program called RealBench which can be downloaded from the ASUS website (Version 2.4. is the latest).

Running the RealBench "Stress Test" will check CPU and RAM by running a suite of tests that load up your system - it doesn't matter if you have another brand of motherboard, it will work fine. I like RealBench because it uses real applications and does not unnecessarily load your system to the extreme, but will quickly identify if your system is not stable at its current settings.

Hope this helps.
 

mahoon

mahoon
Seems I was too quick to judge the RAM. After writing the previous post, Chrome started doing the same graphics corruption. So far, I've only noticed Chrome misbehaving. Hoping it's a Chrome thing. My RealBench benchmark was some 51,800. Going to stress test now.
 

Night Hawk

Night Hawk
A successful benchmark run is a good start and tends to eliminate heat due to insufficient or faulty cooling as a problem.

On my system with an overclocked CPU on air cooling, I get around 60 deg C after a benchmark run, the stress test raises my CPU temps to 67 - 70 deg C, so it works it a little bit harder.

It might be worth running a program to monitor the temperature and voltages on your system while you are testing and even during game play - a good option is HWMonitor, which is also available where you download CPU-Z.

If you can complete the RealBench stress test and your CPU temperatures are OK, then graphics corruption in Chrome may not be related to a RAM or CPU issue.

If you can play ED without any graphic problems and the issue only occurs in Chrome, I suggest you check that you are running the latest version of Chrome. Click on the Customise and Control Icon (3 vertical dots) at the top right side of the Chrome toolbar then select Help and then About Google Chrome - it will check and update itself.

If Chrome is still faulty, the you might want to try to uninstall and reinstall Chrome.

Edit: Just discovered that Windows 10 has its own memory checker - "Windows Memory Diagnostic". It can be found in the Windows Administrative Tools folder or by typing in Memory in the start menu search box. The memory tool reboots your PC and runs in what appears to be a DOS environment prior to bootup.
 
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shadragon

shadragon
Some mobos can save BIOS profiles. If you want to tweak, save the working version before fiddling. Might save you a factory defaults reset and rebuild.

Also, make sure you are rocking the latest BIOS firmware. Small point, but some folks do overlook that.
 

mahoon

mahoon
So, stress test was fine. Decided the XMP was fine too and now sticking with RAM at 2400. Also upgraded the 1060 to a 1080 and have overclocked it slightly (+150Mhz core, +400Mhz memory and 120% power). Have also decided to up my i5 6600K from base 3.9Mhz to 4.2Mhz (no voltage changes). Everything seems groovy and now hitting 89,000 on RealBench. I'm not terribly au fait with overclocking but believe those I've made are within tolerable limits and I'm unlikely to be still running these components in 3 years time, so think it's worth the trade off of longevity for performace boost (though I'll probably get scared next week and set everything back to stock). I reinstalled Chrome and have had no problems since, so I think it really was a Chrome problem, not a hardware or configuration problem. It also fixed the ling issue of Chrome not being selectable as the default app for browsing on Win 10. That should have alerted me, perhaps, that a reinstall of Chrome was probably in order in the first place!
 
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