Overclock v more ram

[Jock]

My dual socket workstation went bust the other week and with work on the go i had to buy a new machine asap though couldn't afford the same spec. I went with a pre-built machine which had 6 gig ram and an Intel i7 950 3.06GHz overclocked to 4.00GHz.

I was used to 8gig ram with which i had never had a crash, having upgraded from 3gig where i got them all the time. I was a bit dubious about 6gig ram but was told it would be more than enough.

I'm only on my second job and now max is crashing quite often and when looking at task manager it would appear to be a lack of ram. Now the problems is, having spoke to the people i bought from they said that if i want to put in another 6gig ram i'd have to take the overclock off. So im wondering what the actual benefit is with regards 3dmax and vray to having the overclock in the first place to see if it would be more worthwhile ditching the overclock and buying more ram ore keeping the overclock and revising the way i work like splitting scenes up a bit more etc.

I realise one option is to re-overclock but i dont really know enough to do so.

[mattclinch]

is it overclockers.co.uk you bought it from?

 

I had a similar situation - bought an i7 bundle o/c to 4ghz with 6gig RAM, but found i needed more RAM, so I found a stable overclock around the 3.8ghz mark that was stable with 12gig of RAM. essentially i looked around and found some people who had got stable o/c with more ram and copied their settings, but i realise that it is far more complicated and involved than just punching in different numbers.

 

later i got a couple of crashes and decided that the extra .6ghz was not worth the frustration and turned everything back to stock. never had a crash since. frankly, i wouldn't go for an overclocked system again - more trouble than its worth.

[Jock]

Yep it was OCUK, they tend to be be where i get most of my kit from, helps getting free p&p.

 

Your experience is interesting though, might be the way forward for me too.

 

Thanks

[Jock]

Also one more quick question Matt, to take the overclock off was it as simple as selecting a different preset in the bios?

[mattclinch]

yes. there were two values, the multiplier, and the bus speed. (the overclock was 20 multiplier and 200mhz bus = 20 x 200 = 4000 (4ghz)

 

i think i read somewhere that i7's are most stable with a multiplier of 20, so i just adjusted my bus speed down to 190. i think later i may actually have gone to 180 now that i think about it ( 20 x 180 = 3.6ghz).

 

this is my simpletons view of overclocking - given that the problem is getting RAM to work, there are a whole loads of RAM clock speeds etc which i'm sure play a part in this issue. frankly, i wouldn't take my word for it, and perhaps post on the OCUK forum to get a better idea of how to troubleshoot the problem.

[Slinger]

Where to begin...

short answer, more ram should help you absolutely. The issue with overclocking and more ram with i7 chips is the memory bus controller is built into the i7 chip. Unlike older processors, having the memory bus controller on the chip makes it a bit more difficult to get high, stable overclocks with the more ram you add.

Depending on your parts, you can make it stable with the 4ghz OC if the chip is capable with that much juice and stress on the chip and the memory controller, it just may take some time to get it stable and if you are not into tweaking all the settings, it will be more of a headache to you than what it is worth. I happen to be a tweaker head, so I don't mind playing with all my settings and such. It can be a cat and mouse game at times.

Personally, if the ram is more important to have than the overclock, which ti sounds like it is, do with what will get you the most stable system. Yes, it would be cool to have a rig to brag about running at 4ghz rendering out in 3secs but it would be alot cooler to get work done without dealing with crashing machines.

Edited November 9, 2010 by Slinger