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ordskiweicz
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P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Tue Mar 15, 2011 3:43 pm

Here's a comment in a review of the Asus p8p67pro from XBit Labs in today's Systems section of TR Shortbread. I have exactly the same problem using GSkill 1600 memory (F3-12800CL7D-8GBXH) Apparently it is the board!

The only serious problem we found with the mainboard is that it does not start up at a memory frequency of 1600 MHz. Whatever memory timings, voltage or modules we used, the mainboard could only start at a memory frequency of 1067 or 1333 MHz. When it's already running, you can set memory frequency to 1600 MHz, choose minimum timings, and the mainboard will pass all the tests and reboot successfully but the next start will be a failure again.

Anyone else have this happen?

Maybe the p6 update will include a fix for it.
Last edited by ordskiweicz on Tue Mar 15, 2011 6:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
Airmantharp
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory iisue

Tue Mar 15, 2011 3:56 pm

I don't have the board, but that's not encouraging. The Pro is the least expensive ATX design that allows for 8x/8x SLi from ASUS, and is therefore highly recommended- any many are trying to use the DDR3-1600 that Sandy Bridge is supposed to support.
 
JustAnEngineer
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory iisue

Tue Mar 15, 2011 4:03 pm

I haven't seen this with the P8P67-M Pro, but I did see some possible stability issues at PC3-12800 speeds and higher multipliers. I've got the F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL:
http://www.gskill.com/products.php?index=239
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory iisue

Tue Mar 15, 2011 4:09 pm

Well, I have my memory operating at 1600 MHz without any problems.
i5 2500K @ 4.6GHz / Cooler Master V8 / Asus P8P67 Evo / 8GB G.skill DDR3-1600 / Zotac GTX 780 3GB / Seasonic S12-650 / Samsung 850pro 256GB SSD / Corsair 600T Graphite / those cheap 1440p Korean monitors
 
Airmantharp
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory iisue

Tue Mar 15, 2011 4:19 pm

It might help if you guys could share the BIOS revision your board is currently using, and special settings (if any).
 
ordskiweicz
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory iisue

Tue Mar 15, 2011 6:23 pm

Fair enough. Here's the details. I tried the Asus software - it didn't help with boot issue beyond setting dram at about 1375. Cas went auto to cas 9 (DRAM should be 7-8-7-24 @ 1.6v as rated)

I have since removed it so all is stock.

Won't post past 1333, resets timing to 9s. changing DRAM voltage to 1.6 doesn't help either. GSkill blames the board. Memtest runs OK at 1333 cas 9

I guess I get a new board (someday) to see if its better.

asus p8p67 Pro bios 1305
2x 4 GB GSkill 12800CL7D-8GBXH (slots as recommended for 2 dimms)
2600K Win7 Pro 64bit
Single Radeon 5850
Corsair 64GB SSD
WD Black 1 TB
 
Burl_Ives
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Mon Mar 28, 2011 11:44 am

I have a very similar problem, with the exact same memory as you and with the P8P67. If I leave it at 1600, it usually gets stuck - won't post, can't get into the bios, etc. I have to use the MemOK! button on the board to get it to work again (thank god for that thing), but it sets the speed at 1333.

That's annoying enough, but I also get the same result after being in sleep (or "stand by") mode - even at 1333. Note I'm running XP. After putting it in sleep mode, the only way I can get the computer to work again is to shut off power and hit the MemOK! button after powering up. Doesn't happen if I power the computer down from the OS - when I turn it on again, it starts fine. Have you noticed this problem as well?

At first I thought it was a compatibility problem with the memory, now I'm not so sure especially since I see these complaints posted on the 8GBRL G. Skill memory, which is on ASUS' official list.
 
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Tue Mar 29, 2011 7:26 am

Before I got my B3 replacement board, I had the same issue with BIOS 1204. Enabling 'Wake by PCI-E' seemed to fix it.. not sure why though. It's a common fix from what I can gather from threads about it on other forums. Since I've gotten my replacement the issue seems to be have been resolved, or at least I haven't had to change that setting to run at 1600. Not sure if it's enabled by default now though, as I haven't checked. This is with bios 1304 (I think).
 
karddark
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Tue Apr 05, 2011 9:30 pm

I got my replacement P8P67 pro and the RAM still defaults to 1333. Before I start messing with it - is this really something I can just forget about? I mean, as long as there is no technical problem, I'm tempted to just not worry about it and leave it at 1333. Is there something I'm missing as far as a compatibility issue with running it at that frequency? I'm not planning on doing any overclocking, I just want everything on the system to run nice and stable.
 
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Tue Apr 05, 2011 9:42 pm

Tech Report explored memory speed impact on overall performance. It's close to zero. :)
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karddark
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Tue Apr 05, 2011 9:53 pm

Yeah that article was kind of what made me think I shouldn't worry about it - as long as there aren't any actual compatibility issues with the rest of the system. I guess I'll just run memtest a bunch of times and some other diags and if I don't find any problem I'll just consider it a non-issue.
 
Airmantharp
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Wed Apr 06, 2011 1:18 am

morphine wrote:
Tech Report explored memory speed impact on overall performance. It's close to zero. :)


While I absolutely appreciate Geoff's work in putting out this article, the article explores stock CPU speeds and doesn't venture into overclocking. I guarantee that if and when I get my hands on an i7 2600k, it will not be running anywhere close to stock speeds. Around forums and in product reviews I've seen that a $140 P67-based MSI G45 and a $30 Hyper 212+ can boost an inexpensive i7 2500k up to 4.5GHz easily with two graphics cards running at x8/x8 in Crossfire or SLi and 4x4GB DDR3 on board; so I feel correct in believing that memory which provides more bandwidth or imposes less latency than the usual 1333MHz CAS 9 kits would increase performance. I'd really like to see this situation explored!
 
russty
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Wed Apr 06, 2011 7:24 am

Karddark: My memory still defaulted to 1333 as well. It should be as simple as changing it to 1600 though, if your memory supports it. Like you said, if you're worried about stability do some stress testing. Some memtest passes, or an hour of Prime95 blend should do the trick.
 
Burl_Ives
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Wed Apr 06, 2011 8:35 am

An update: I've been running 1600 without problems for over a week now. Updating the P8P67 BIOS to 1401 seemed to do the trick. I still have the same issue with not being able to go out of sleep mode, but spoke with ASUS and their theory is to set the PLL to disable, do a repair install on win XP and it should be fine.

Airmantharp: I think you're setting your goals a bit low. Invest in a good case, power supply, and better CPU cooler and you can do much better. Don't have my specs with me right now, but with an i5 2500K I can do 4.8Ghz easily, staying a hair above 60 degrees under stress tests. I can probably get to 5.0 with a bit more tweaking. My total spend on the case/supply/cooler was about $200-225.
 
morphine
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Wed Apr 06, 2011 9:36 am

Airmantharp wrote:
While I absolutely appreciate Geoff's work in putting out this article, the article explores stock CPU speeds and doesn't venture into overclocking. I guarantee that if and when I get my hands on an i7 2600k, it will not be running anywhere close to stock speeds.

Right, but you'll overclock that using the CPU multiplier only, RAM speeds won't be affected at all. So I'm guessing the impact will still be very minimal to non-existent.
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Airmantharp
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Wed Apr 06, 2011 9:46 am

morphine wrote:
Airmantharp wrote:
While I absolutely appreciate Geoff's work in putting out this article, the article explores stock CPU speeds and doesn't venture into overclocking. I guarantee that if and when I get my hands on an i7 2600k, it will not be running anywhere close to stock speeds.

Right, but you'll overclock that using the CPU multiplier only, RAM speeds won't be affected at all. So I'm guessing the impact will still be very minimal to non-existent.


I know where you're going with this- but while overclocking the CPU is done independently of the RAM due to the use of an unlocked multiplier, wouldn't you think that a now higher-clocked processor would be able to make use of higher speed/lower latency memory, and that the average 1333/CAS 9 stuff could be considered a hinderance?
 
Taniniver
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Wed Apr 06, 2011 9:48 am

Indeed - at some point memory bandwidth or latency will become a limiting factor.

If this is the case with a Core i7 2500k at 4.5 Ghz+, I don't know. Some benchmarks would be useful, especially ones concerned with archive operations, these seem to be the most sensitive apps when it comes to memory bandwidth.
 
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Wed Apr 06, 2011 9:59 am

Airmantharp: it's possible, and I'm not wholly discounting the possibility. It's just that chances are fairly minimal :)
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Stargazer
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Wed Apr 06, 2011 4:08 pm

morphine wrote:
Tech Report explored memory speed impact on overall performance. It's close to zero. :)


I've seen plenty of people refer to that article as evidence that there's no point in going higher than 1333 memory for Sandy Bridge. I disagree.

I'm not saying that it's necessarily the case that faster memory will give a significant benefit, but simply that the article doesn't show that the opposite is true in the general case.
The article simply shows that under the conditions used, there is no significant benefit for the majority of the performed tests. This is not the same thing.

First of all, not all test showed insignificant gains from increased memory speeds. The Euler3d test actually saw quite a big improvement, which means that there *are* applications where the increase in memory speed can be useful. However, this actually wasn't the test that saw the biggest improvement. The biggest improvement (by far) when going from 1333C9 to 1600C9 was actually seen with the minimum frame rates for Metro 2033 (High). I'm not sure how much this test can be trusted though, since the 2133 memory showed slower results than the 1600 memory. Yes, the memory timings were looser for the 2133 memory, but the increased frequency should offset this. This, and the somewhat weird minimum values for Dirt 2 (High) and Metro 2033 (Low) make me wonder how reliable these minimum frame rate tests really are (3 out of 4 tests seem potentially "weird").

It should also be noted that many of the other tests don't really have a high enough precision to reliably show a difference on the order of 5% or so. For example, the Civ 5 (High) test shows a 5% improvement when going from 1333C9 to 1600C9, but this is only a difference of 2 fps, which makes it harder to draw any reliable conclusions (rounding alone could have a big impact), and this could also be hiding improvements in other cases.

In addition to this, there are no tests of heavy multitasking conditions, a case where I'd expect increased memory speeds to be helpful.


Aside from the questions of which tests are (not) present in the article, and how representative these tests are for what you're likely to use your computer for, there's also the question of what happens when you work outside the parameters of the article. For instance, as Airmantharp says, there's the case of overclocking. The Sandy Bridge processors are good overclockers. In addition to this, there's also the possibility of using a faster graphics card. The test uses a 5870, and there are certainly faster cards out there even now (Geoff even states in the article that the graphics card becomes a bottleneck in some cases, and when the graphics card is the major bottleneck, you can't really draw too many conclusions about memory speed (other than "in this particular scenario, it doesn't really help")). It's also possible that you'll want to put a next generation card into your computer eventually (I certainly am planning to do that). When you increase the speed of "everything else", memory becomes more of a bottleneck.

It is of course possible that 1333 memory is fast enough to not become a major bottleneck in many of the tested situations even if you overclock your processor and use a faster graphics card. Unfortunately, the article doesn't show if this is the case or not. It would have been interesting to know how far we are from memory being a bottleneck in the tested scenarios. Would 1200 MHz memory be fast enough to avoid being a bottleneck? 1000 MHz? 800 MHz? If memory wouldn't be a bottleneck (for a given scenario) at 800 MHz, it would probably be safe to say that 1333 MHz memory wouldn't easily become a bottleneck when you overclock your processor either. At the very least, it'd be very interesting to see what the situation is like with an overclocked processor and a faster graphics card.


We also have a wild-card in AVX.
By taking advantage of AVX, it should be possible to increase the demands on the memory sub-system. It seems likely that during the lifetime of a new Sandy Bridge system, *someone* should be able to release *something* that would be able to make good use of AVX. Would faster memory be more useful in a larger number of cases then? Who knows...
 
Stargazer
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Wed Apr 06, 2011 4:15 pm

morphine wrote:
Airmantharp wrote:
While I absolutely appreciate Geoff's work in putting out this article, the article explores stock CPU speeds and doesn't venture into overclocking. I guarantee that if and when I get my hands on an i7 2600k, it will not be running anywhere close to stock speeds.

Right, but you'll overclock that using the CPU multiplier only, RAM speeds won't be affected at all. So I'm guessing the impact will still be very minimal to non-existent.


The "but" seems out of place. It's when you increase *both* CPU and RAM speeds that you don't really expect to see any major (relative) changes in how much of a bottleneck memory is. In fact, when you increase *only* CPU speed, you're practically by definition moving towards making memory more of a bottleneck. It is of course possible that there's enough "head room" with regards to memory speed that it won't become a significant bottleneck even when overclocking, but the article in question unfortunately doesn't show if this is the case or not.
 
morphine
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Wed Apr 06, 2011 4:23 pm

While all you said might be true and I won't dispute the points, the bottom line is that going for fancy RAM, being defined by "RAM that costs substantially more than standard" is still a losing proposition, and IMO that's what the article set out to show. And as for the really specific workloads... they're really specific :). Chances are that anyone doing so will have investigated enough to pick his/her hardware for either scientific computing, rendering, etc.

In other words, for 99.99% of people it comes down to something like "would you rather sink $50 on the better CPU or graphics card for, say, 10 to 20% gains (or more), or on better RAM for 2%?"
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Airmantharp
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Thu Apr 07, 2011 1:29 am

morphine wrote:
In other words, for 99.99% of people it comes down to something like "would you rather sink $50 on the better CPU or graphics card for, say, 10 to 20% gains (or more), or on better RAM for 2%?"


Absolutely, and I believe that Geoff answers this question well. My only concern, as has been mentioned, is the lack of information surrounding various memory speeds and latencies when significantly overclocking a CPU, and is particularly more poignant today with Sandy Bridge CPUs that overclock like banshees while being able to run the RAM at any speed one would like.

Here's my test case: Take your 2600k, and run a comparison of it at stock and at 4.5GHz, testing the effects of each:
1333MHz CAS 9
1333MHz CAS 7
1600MHZ CAS9
1600MHZ CAS8
1600MHZ CAS7
1866MHZ CAS9
and higher if the memory can be obtained.

I really think that there's a case for this exploration given the proliferation of inexpensive SNB boards, speedy 2x4GB DDR3 kits, and CPUs that will push well past 4.0GHz with inexpensive 3rd party cooling. Here's a quick reference cart from Newegg with 1866MHZ C9 and a 2500k, that can handle either Crossfire or SLi in an x8/x8 configuration and is known to overclock to 4.5GHz+:

-------------------------
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
Item #:N82E16819115072
Return Policy: CPU Replacement Only Return Policy $224.99

CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 Desktop Memory
Item #:N82E16820233142
Return Policy: Memory Standard Return Policy -$15.00 Instant $144.99
$129.99

MSI P67A-G45 (B3) ATX Intel Motherboard
Item #:N82E16813130582
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy $139.99

COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 120mm sleeve CPU Cooler
Item #:N82E16835103065
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy $34.99

Grand Total: $529.96
-------------------------

The price difference between the memory above and standard 1333MHz CAS 9 is $50; when you consider that you still need a case, power supply, and one or two video cards as well as a wireless NIC and possibly a sound card, that $50 delta doesn't really seem like much if nearly 50% more memory bandwidth can give you another 5-10% performance boost in scenarios that matter.

What do you guys think?
 
ordskiweicz
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Thu May 12, 2011 10:01 pm

Update on the original post: The replacement p8p67 pro B3 with same bios 1305 runs the 1600 memory fully correctly for speed and CAS (after voltage set to rated1.6v).

In my case it appears that the issue was the mobo since these same settings did not work on the original mobo. My apologies to GSkill!

(In my everyday usage and gaming, I see little difference from my Core Duo at 3.16, let alone RAM speed and CAS. I guess I'll upgrade less often in the future.)
 
Airmantharp
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Re: P8P67 pro and 1600 MHz memory issue

Thu May 12, 2011 11:12 pm

It's mostly due to the Core 2 Duo being slow in general :). I run my 2500k at 4.5-5.0GHz, still nailing it down for 24/7 use, but you're going to need more clockspeed to get a noticeable benefit.

For reference, I considered my Core 2 Quad 9550 overclocked to 3.4GHz to be slow. I know that's out of proportion for some people, but at 1920x1200 with a GTX570 (now traded for an HD6950 2GB, which has had an equal partner added) I was CPU limited. That means that the Core 2 Quad was stuck at 95-100% utilization while the GTX570 was at 60-80% utilization.

TL;DR: You need more clocks!

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