Sabertooth 990fx V2 and memory conflicts

[davearcher]

Hi all ....... dumb newbie here !

 

 

I have just upgraded my system from  >>>

 

Asus M5A97 pro

Kingston  kvr 1333 d3 n9    16Gb 1333

AMD phenom 965 black

Nvidea Quadro fx 4600   760mb

 

TO

 

Asus Sabertooth 990fx  V2.0

16 Gb    (2 x 8 Gb)   Kingston hyperx   khx21 c11  t2  k2 / 16x   2133

AMD FX 8350     8 core processor 

Nvidea Quadro fx 4600   760mb

 

 

I work with Solidworks and Autocad CAD systems, and do a lot of rendering and Maya graphics work.

 

The system seemed to be struggling and slow, and so I thought that a new board and

 

faster processor would help.

Some real games would be fun too !

 

 

The problem I have now is that the new system seems to be much slower than the old system.

 

I have to wait around for longer during renderings, and there seems to be some serious bottleneck happening.

 

I discovered that after I bought the new memory sticks, that the Sabertooth board qualified memory

 

list does not support any memory above 1866.

 

Could this be the problem with the slow system ?

 

I don't have a clue about the technical side of memory timings.

 

I had been twiddling around with the memory timings in the Bios, but all I got was system crashes and non-startups.

 

So I had to press Mem-Ok button and let it sort itself out.

 

Does anyone think that I should go back to 1333 memory sticks or is there an easy way to adjust the memory I already have to make it more compatible.  ?

 

 

dave

 

[dr_bowtie]

try the old sticks if you have them. I run a bench on the ram to see if the BIOS likes it or not.

 

AMD seem to prefer Corsair Vengence or ADATA-XPG ram. and I'd use 1600-1866 ram. or at least try setting it manual in the BIOS from 1333-1600 and see if that makes a difference. Kingston seems to be a crap shoot these days.

[davearcher]

try the old sticks if you have them. I run a bench on the ram to see if the BIOS likes it or not.

 

AMD seem to prefer Corsair Vengence or ADATA-XPG ram. and I'd use 1600-1866 ram. or at least try setting it manual in the BIOS from 1333-1600 and see if that makes a difference. Kingston seems to be a crap shoot these days.

 

Thanks for your reply,

 

I managed once to get it to run at 2133, then 1600, then 1333, but the system was unstable, tried different timings, I have finally settled on 1600 for now, but there are still some slight conflicts between the memory and motherboard, or processor, that I did not

have before, there are still jitters and slight slowdowns in programs.

 

I assume that it is not the correct type of memory for the motherboard.

I did not realise that there are so many different types of memory sticks.

 

I will buy some more memory sticks that are listed as compatible in the motherboard manual.

 

regards  dave 

[DanTheGamer11]

Was the voltage settings correct? Good choice about the compliant memory list tho

Edited April 28, 2014 by DanTheGamer11

[davearcher]

Was the voltage settings correct? Good choice about the compliant memory list tho

 

I tried several different voltage values for different timing combinations, between 1.5 and 1.65 volts.

didn't want to risk damaging the memory sticks.

 

Seems to me that there are dozens of different types of memory, and timings, even in the DDR3 range.

 

It would be very useful if some magazine could compile a list of ---- What memory works best with what motherboard !

 

dave

[Waco]

Are your rendering applications single-threaded? The 8350 is likely a bit slower than your Phenom II in heavy single threaded FPU workloads.

[ccokeman]

Are your rendering applications single-threaded? The 8350 is slower than your Phenom II in heavy single threaded FPU workloads.

 

Edited for accuracy LOL

[davearcher]

Are your rendering applications single-threaded? The 8350 is likely a bit slower than your Phenom II in heavy single threaded FPU workloads.

 

I haven't a clue about that !

 

But you have a very good point there,

 

if the program uses just one or two of the processor cores, then 2 out of 4 cores is a lot bigger than 2 out of 8 cores.

 

Just shows that a big butch powerful processor and faster memory is not necessarily any faster or better in some cases.

 

Maybe only for gaming.

 

dave

[JBags]

You misunderstand. Total core count has nothing to do with it.

 

After the Phenom IIs, AMD changed their CPU design taking two individual cores and combining them into a "conjoined twin" where they share some lesser-used functions, called a module. The FX-8350 is a 8 core/4 module chip, for instance. Because the two individual cores of a module share some functions with each other they run slightly slower than the entirely separate cores of a Phenom II.

[davearcher]

You misunderstand. Total core count has nothing to do with it.

 

After the Phenom IIs, AMD changed their CPU design taking two individual cores and combining them into a "conjoined twin" where they share some lesser-used functions, called a module. The FX-8350 is a 8 core/4 module chip, for instance. Because the two individual cores of a module share some functions with each other they run slightly slower than the entirely separate cores of a Phenom II.

 

Ok thanks for your help !

 

I know absolutely nothing about all these memory configurations and timings, etc.

 

But it looks like an interesting subject that I could look into more.

 

I think my current memory sticks are simply just not compatible with the motherboard, they are not shown in the motherboard manual at all, and so no timings are given.

 

Although the manual does list two 2133 memory options, khx2133c11d3k4 / 16gx  (xmp)  4 x 4 Gb

 

and khx2133c11d3t1k2 /16gx ( xmp)  2 x 8 Gb

 

but not the sticks that I have  = khx21c11t2k2 / 16x   = 2 x 8Gb.

 

 

Although in the specifications summary at the front of the manual it does not list 2133 memory at all = it says >>>

 

MEMORY       4 x DIMM max. 32Gb, DDR3  1866 / 1600 / 1333 / 1066 Mhz    ECC, non ECC, unbuffered memory.

 

HOW confusing is THAT ?

 

I have downloaded the latest updated memory list from the Asus website, but my memory sticks are not on that list either.

 

 

I will try some cheaper  corsair 1600 that is actually listed in the manual, along with their timings.

 

I don't REALLY need the fastest gaming memory, I just want my animations and rendering programs to work smoothly.

 

Like they did before I  " Upgraded " the computer.

 

 

dave

Edited April 29, 2014 by davearcher

[wevsspot]

Hey Dave.  While I'm not personally a huge fan of Kingston memory I wouldn't throw the baby out with the towel just yet.

 

Clear your CMOS

Reset BIOS to default values

Set your four primary memory timings to; 10-10-10-30

Set your memory speed to 1600Mhz

Set your dram voltage to 1.5v

 

Save settings, exit and then run Memtest 86+ for eight hours or overnight

 

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

 

Report results

 

This of course won't change the performance differential between the Phenom and Vishera processors, but it will tell you whether your memory is good and stable.

 

Lastly, are you using the GPU for rendering or the CPU?