GA-790FXTA-UD5 and Patriot Extreme Performance Viper II Series DDR3 PC3

[Graywolves]

Have a bit of a conflict of opinion regarding this mainboard GA-790FXTA-UD5 and Patriot Extreme Performance Viper II Series DDR3 4GB (2 x 2GB) PC3-12800 memory.

I have a fully populated board, 8GB of matched dual channel memory.

This memory is rated at 1600MHz with an 8-8-8-24 timing.

As was stated on Gigabyte's website about this board, there are too many memory types for them to test them all. This memory was amongst those not tested.

From past experience, I always let the mainboard SPD figure out what the ram was and left it at that. I am new to this board, only a couple weeks since I bought it. I noticed only recently that the SPD was not properly detecting the memory. I looked up the specs and entered the bios and changed the settings manually.

It worked for a couple days.

Then while trying to OC my video card I had a minor crash and was forced to reboot. But instead of fully POSTing, it locked up during the hard drive search. A hard reset a couple times I get past this and see the OS begin to start...but another lockup. Several, and I mean SEVERAL attempts to reboot, have all failed. I tried to get into the BIOS and it would lockup. Nothing I tried would get anywhere.

I was forced to go to BIOS defaults. I adjusted all the settings. Over several attempts to find the problem, I eventually discovered that for some reason, my memory settings absolutely refuse to work this go around.

Figuring my memory was bad, I took it back to the store I bought from. I'll not fault Memory Express (in Calgary NE) for their awesome support, but in this particular case, I think they were blowing smoke up my ass regarding the memory.

After they checked it and verified it worked, the song and dance they said was that my mainboard doesn't support 1600 clock except under OC conditions and that I will void the memory if I try to run this memory at the rated speed on this board. I am currently calling bull**** to that.

According to the manual, there is reference to OC, but I am not trying to OC 1066 or 1333 memory, I am trying to get 1600 to run at 1600, not at 1333 where it is currently as I write this. The Gigabyte website sort of indicates I should be able to run this memory without any problems.

Back to the manual, there is reference to placing memory in slots 3 and 4 to get 1600MHz clock rate at the beginning where it gives a breakdown of the capabilities. But there is no more reference to this anywhere I look.

Does this mean I cannot have memory in slots 1 and 2? That totally doesn't make sense.

Any advice on what I should look for to set my BIOS properly to get this memory to run at rated speeds???

TIA

[Nickel020]

Re: GA-790FXTA-UD5 and Patriot Extreme Performance Viper II Series DDR3 PC3

When using 4 sticks you're never going to achieve the same RAM speeds as you are with 2 sticks. When the memory controller has to handle 4 sticks it's just under more strain. So do try if you can get the RAM to run at 1600 with only 2 sticks.

Some RAM will also simply not run at its rated speed on AMD systems, as it's designed for Intel systems.

While the RAM most likely isn't faulty as it works at lower speeds, you'll definitely not void the RAM warranty by trying to run it at 1600. No CPU form Intel or AMD does officially support 1600, so by the shop's logic no 1600+ RAM could ahve any warranty at all. The only thing they don't guarantee is that you can get it to run at 1600 on your system, as not every system is capable of doing so.

You should also try to update the BIOS but make sure the system is stable before you do that.

On the other hand there's pretty much no noticeable performance gain from running your RAM at 1600, sometimes even 1333 with lower timings performs better (but the differences are so small you'll never notice them inr eal usage, just in benchmarks).