dumb RAM overclocking question

[bobafett573]

ok, i know you guys must get sick and tired of hearing noob overclockers ask the same question that i'm going to ask. how do i start to overclock my RAM? i read the thread at the top of the forum posts but i still don't understand. how do i decrease the latency in small increments. the only options in my BIOS are 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0. i don't think it's a good idea to jump from my 2.5 to a 2.0 immediately. also, how do i know how much to increase the voltage by? sorry for this question i'm sure you've seen many times. i have experience overclocking video cards but now i'm on to RAM. oh, and i have 2 x 256mb PNY PC2700 memory and 1 x 512mb cheapo brand PC3200 memory.

 

[gaara]

The 2, 2.5 etc you are seeing are fine, latency is only increased or decreased by .5 increments so there is problem there. Also, when overclocking the RAM you increase or loosen to timings, in order to maintain stability.

DIMM voltage should be increased by .1 increments.

 

[Nubius]

you loosen the latencies when overclocking RAM, not tighten them.

Going from 2.5 to 2.0 cas latency will do nothing in terms of performance.

Say you had RAM that was PC3200 timed at 2-2-2-5 and you wanted to hit 220MHz otherwise known as DDR400 you'd probably need to loosen timings to 2.5-3-3-7 to get there.

Sounds like your board is not an OC'ers board basically.

with good RAM you can give it 2.9v and just keep pushing the frequency and loosening timings until it won't go anymore

 

[GrimReaper23]

well why are you going up? I wanna try to overclock my Ram but I hit the same wall as him.

 

[Codeine]

When you have tight timings, such as 2-2-2-5. Your RAM cannot OC very stable. Because the latency is to low for such high speeds. So you must increase the latency, so it can handle its new speed. Once you get around 230, your timings will become pretty loose. Depending on your RAM. This is what makes G Skill and OCZ so good. These top-line brands RAM can handle more OC per timing.

Thus, with these brands the more you OC the less you have to increase latency.

 

[bobafett573]

ok for example, my current timings are 3-3-3-8. What is the first step i should take in overclocking?

 

[Nubius]

first step would be to not overclock

You have valueRAM with already loose timings........it's not going to OC and chances are you'd sooner fry it than actually get a good clock

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Know whats funny? My pc2700 is being forced to run a little faster than pc3200 to keep up with my CPU.......

Crazy aint it?

 

[bobafett573]

ok then i'll get new RAM. if you could, plz go to this thread and tell me which RAM is best (out of the options there):
http://www.techist.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51930