on the board by default settings it runs at 1066 I believe... go into the BIOS and in the AI Tweaker section you will see the DRAM speed setting.. change it to 1600 and change the timings to it's rated 8-8-8-24 settings.

you might also want to run a memtest to see if the memory works fine

jwenham wrote on Jan 9^th, 2009 at 9:51pm:


Your memory is rated for 8-8-8-24 1600, correct?

First 4

          CPUz           -      BIOS SETTING

CAS# Latency (CL) - DRAM CAS# LATENCY = 8
RAS# to CAS# Delay (tRCD) - DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay = 8
RAS# Precharge (tRP) - DRAM RAS# PRE TIME = 8
Cycle Time (tRAS) - DRAM RAS# ACT TIME=24

jwenham wrote on Jan 9^th, 2009 at 10:09pm:



Your DRAM voltage will be 1.66

Your QPI/DRAM voltage will be 1.35 to 1.37

To start off at normal CPU speed..    BCLOCK (AUTO) and normal Vcore (AUTO) the MANUAL setting of memory speed 1600 should be available automatically without making any changes in memory multiplier.

As you increase BCLOCK the memory speed will change based on the memory multiplier in use You want to be set to as close to 1600 as possible on the highest BCLOCK to hit your target CPU speed

If you are going for the full 4GHz you will need to check the memory speed as you increase BCLOCK and you can work the memory multiplier to get it in line with the memory

Sometimes you must accept a lower memory speed than 1600 or over 1600 but you can not go too high over or it may be unstable.




Now I do wish to warn about something... do not overclock until Windows is completely installed and stable with drivers. Overclocking is the last thing you do after everything is installed, set up and checked and the system is defragged and clean.

The timings will always remain a constant becuase you set them manually. If you set the speed to 1600, then you are ready to rock


If you wish to verify, after Windows is installed.. download and run CPUz 1.49

the memory tab will show you the memory speed and timing

memory speed will be displayed as 800 (2x800=1600)

This is not a i7 readout... but you see what 1600 looks like @ 7-7-7-20 and  1T





yours should read the same except 800  8-8-8-24   1T

jwenham wrote on Jan 9^th, 2009 at 11:01pm:



Just hold off on clocking till everything... EVERYTHING (including addons) is installed and properly defragged

Dont forget ALL the Windows updates too!


I know.. its a pain

but you only have to do it once the long way

After you have everything installed, cleaned up and running and you have confirmed everything is running in FSX good..

then you start the clocking adventure

if you clock before and anything in that clock is unstable at all, you risk the entire install to corruption.

NickN wrote on Jan 9^th, 2009 at 10:18pm:

what I did in this case is find the highest stable CPU clock speed and then set the memory speeds as fast as it would be stable. I have 1600 memory rated at 7-7-7-4 and I had to accept 1480 instead of 1600 because the next highest setting after 1480 as like 1860 and that was unstable

that's how to do it, right Nick? or would we get better performance with a bit lower clock but higher mem speed?

NickN wrote on Jan 9^th, 2009 at 10:18pm:



Nick, Not that I doubt you but its OK to set the DRAM voltage to 1.66? I just want to make sure before I change it, dont want to break my 2000.00 investment. 1.64 agrees with the BIOS and the funny thing is that 1.65 which is what my RAM is rated for is'nt even an option? Can you elaborate on this for me?

Jim