Warning don't go overclocking your RAM.

I was feeling lucky today and was in BIOs so i thought im going to try and run my cosair DDR4 2400 at DDR2666. its just one simple setting in BIOS, what could go wrong…
Black screen of death… Several reboots 1hr, and a flat headed screwdriver on the Clear RAM timings bios jumper, and thankfully im up and running again at 2400… DON’T DO IT,. ITS NOT WORTH IT… it probably wouldn’t have made any difference anyway.

Generally, that’s the story of overclocking. It decreases stability and increases the likelyhood of hardware damage for what, a couple percentage points of performance? Not worth it. Back in the day when you could double the performance of a celeron, hell yeah. but nowadays, meh.

Unless you are a hard core gamer. Never, ever over clock your machine.
Not for serious CGI work. And especially not for rendering.

Always check as well that the machine has not been overclocked by the provider. If they are advertised as gaming machines they often are. Stability and reliability is always preferable to speed if you are using the machine for work.

This is a silly warning. Do your research. Overclocking isn’t particularly difficult or dangerous if you go in informed and keep things nice and cool. Sounds like a cheap motherboard, cheap RAM, a PSU with a bad 12v rail, lots of heat, or some combination are involved here. I’ve run my CPU overclocked from 3.8 to 4.5 GHz with water cooling and my RAM at 2666 vs. the advertised 2400 with no additional cooling for years without a single hiccup. RAM especially is about the safest thing that you can OC. If it gets too hot it will fault before physical failure, and the solution is a simple BIOS clear or setting reset.

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I just updated my motherboard bios to the latest firmware… its a ASUS X370 pro,… As for the components a did not go looking for cheap stuff, just picked what looked good without much knowledge. 32GB cosair DDR4 2400 was all they had in stock at the time anyway… The PSU is 800 watt to give it plenty of overhead for a 1070 +ryzen 1700 system…
You say RAM is the safest thing to OC, well when you get a black screen and wont boot, after just one setting change it does not sound safe if you ask me… i don’t think i will attempt it again.

Are you on X99?

Anywho, overclocking nowadays is dead easy especially overclocking ram, since most come with XMP/AMP profiles. It’s literally a button/setting on most mobos. But like @m9105826 said, do your research. Buy good components. Those expensive mobos you find out there, especially gaming ones, are expensive for a reason. They usually have more phases to allow more power draw to overclocked components, have overclocking features built into the mobo. Cooling is super important. Never overclock without adequate cooling, period. Cheap PSUs are not a good idea, go Platinum if you can Gold at minimum, imo. You can’t go wrong with Corsair imo.

My rig is an X99 ASRock X99X Mobo, 2666mhz ram, and the CPU is overclocked to 4.3Ghz. I have AIO Watercooler (NZXT X61). I’ve had the machine for at this point over two years and no issues. Overclocking in my case was necessary, imo as the base clock for a 5820K is 3.3Ghz. I’m getting a full 1.2Ghz from overclocking.

The thing is to be smart about how you overclock, don’t go overboard, get as stable as you can and keep it there. I can overclock my rig to 4.5 no problem, but for stability’s sake I keep it at 4.3. I get to keep voltages well below 1.3v and cooling becomes a bit easier.

Obscured, the world of science behind the computer is. Luckily one didn’t burn else but mind. :slight_smile:
… as with any skill, so comes and it goes: “Be ready to fail with what you don’t know doing. Forgive yourself, continue & remember to ask experience for help or guidance. For details… study yourself.”

I burnt few chips myself, before i learned about the harmony and the symphony orchestra makes.

i watched an entire 30 min video by an AMD expert on memory and cpu overclocking on ryzen. And after that and after a bios update and setting some XMP thing, it has booted into windows and ran blender at DDR4 2666… The BMW27 (2 BMW) benchmark just ran at 29.67 seconds. CPU speed stock. 16x16 tiles, GPU +CPU hybrid render… So the moral of the story is DONT play about with overclocks unless you know what you are doing, and are prepared for things to go wrong, but if you get it to work, you could get faster renders.

Overclocking is a slow process. You up a notch (not a stairway), and then test. After testing (and I don’t mean “will it boot”, I mean test stability) you step up a notch. Rinse, and repeat. When you start to get instability, you drop down a notch or two.

However, with modern machines, I wonder if it’s even necessary. The real world gains tend to be small.

Moved from “General Forums > Blender and CG Discussions” to “Misc: > Off-topic Chat”

I overclock all the computers I use for work. All the time. Especially for rendering. I have lost more renders to Windows updates to be honest than to hardware failure as far. With most modern hardware the worst thing that can happen is your computer turns it self off! How good is that? There were times they used to go on fire literally.

Hey , Perhaps I came over too strong before.

But I’ve been in two small studio deadline situations where over clocked machines have gone down at a very important and vital moments and caused some very big problems for us. Each time we were warned by technicians not to do this. Especially for rendering. First time it was a machine bought from a gaming computer provider.

It’s interesting. I was was at a small CGI barbecue gathering of about 3 other fellow artists last summer and this subject came up. Gaming machines and cards vs dedicated workstations and pro cards etc… For professional 3D work. It was the two younger guys who were all in favor of over clocking and using the fastest gaming cards and machines for cost vs performance reasons. And me and another more veteran guy who were not so keen. Basically because we had such bad experiences of this in the past.

I guess it’s like an injury. If you have a past physical injury you never forget it, and if you see anyone go down that path it’s like “ No ! Please be careful ! “

Anyway, sorry I came over so strong earlier. I really don’t want to turn all argumentative and dogmatic on here. Or give that impression. And I’m not a computer tech. The world and everything else is mostly complex shades and there is always something new to learn.

All the best to everyone.

Toka, I am just sharing my perspective. It’s interesting to hear yours as well. It’s not like that’s an arguement. It is probably a good idea not to overclock workstations if a crash is going to make you lose money. On the other hand if you test thouroughly and make sure the overcklocked machine is stable, with modern hardware that is usually surprisingly well protected from causing damage to itself, I see no harm.

Hey no problem,

And as you mentioned the situation and circumstance is so pertinent as well. I guess exactly like individuals and health issues.
The commercial work aspect plays a big part with something like this. It’s not just money of course. But the responsibility to have to deliver on time to a legal signed contract. With TV especially the deadlines have to be met.
In my case I’ve rarely ever been in the ideal place work wise to be able to thouroughly test a machine that is so vital for work.
There have always been too many other things to worry about at the time normally. And it’s mostly been the same for colleagues.

I’ve mostly just wanted things as steady as can be possible. So my latest home workstation stay’s at the advised settings from the
manufacturer. But then machines can go down for all sorts of reasons as you mentioned. So it’s never going to be a hard and fast black and white issue. I once had a male cat wonder in doors and spray my machine during an important render. That was years ago and pretty crazy at the time. Why my computer of all things ? The machine was ok that time though. But I suppose the cat had claimed ownership. Anyway, I guess for me it became about extra risk avoidance. Like hard drive back ups.

This is one reason I think Blender is so ideal and just a dream come true for freelance CG artists the world over. If you really are in a work machine doomsday scenario. You can just get access to another machine and get instantly up and running again. No re-licencing hassle and nightmares. These days it’s possible to carry the whole project around on a flash drive and boot up anywhere. Software, files the whole damn lot. I’m still so amazed by that and how liberating it feels. It’s how it ideally should be and removes a lot of worry’s.

This is the best of how forums should be though. All the pros and cons expressed clearly. Then everyone can decide for themselves what is best for their own particular circumstance’s. I just wanted to re emphasize. I can’t bare it when discussions become dogmatic on internet forums. So just by putting my own particular experiences over. It’s obviously not going to be the same for everyone. I worded my initial post much too strongly.

Seems like overclocking is one of the most addictive computer things. “More power” is a powerful enticement. A little voice in the head says, “Oh we gotta get some of that!”. It clicks a pleasure button in the brain when you do get some.

-LP

The same voice tells me to put some light portals in the windows before rendering an interior scene. I think it’s a good thing. If you save time everywhere, it adds up to an amount worth of the effort. Where is the line? Which of the little things that we all optimize is not worth it anymore?.. I think it’s logical to spend an hour or two every time you get a new PC to overclock it. There is practically no risk of any harm these days if you do it right. Same thing as turning off Windows’ automatic restart for updates. Little thing. You do it once and then forget about it.

I inadvertently implied otherwise but I agree. Those seconds add up. Time is valuable. I overclock too.

This is an interesting thread. Thanks for your time everyone.

  • LP

maybe he should ahve said it’s the safest thing to OC if you know what you’re doing.
your post makes it sound like you got stars in your eyes over a quick performance upgrade and jumped in w/ both feet and changed a setting w/out checking all the details and looking into what other settings you need, what is best for your memory/mobo etc.

My son and his friends have a habit of overclocking anything they can overclock. I always considered it a form of roulette. No they never got the message, even after one of them fried their CPU, they still kept at it. Even after the boy put my last computer together for me (I let him, as he seemed to really like doing that) he asked if I wanted to overclock the CPU. I’ll never understand the attraction of that kind of risk. You void the warranty, and put the hardware through more punishment than they were rated for. Manufacturers rate them the way they do for a reason.

I’ve learnt since then… I threw my old pc in the skip because i could not get it to boot after OCing the RAM… there was no jumper on the mobo anywhere so i could not reset the bios or so i thought. Turns out i should have placed the tip of a screwdriver on the bios reset pins and it would have been fine.
Nowadays i OC my DDR4 as it boosts performance for my Ryzen… I’ve overdone it a few times but the screwdriver reset trick restores it. I use the XMP settings to run it at a stable 2800mhz up from stock 2400mhz. 32GBs.