Best 4 Dimm board for overclocking i9-14900k

Ichirou · Nov 7, 2023

sultanofswing said:
I guess silicon lottery doesn't matter anymore, Screw it every CPU on the market should run 8000+ on the Apex.

If by that you mean CPU overclocking, then yeah, it doesn't matter. Virtually every single board since Z690 has been able to push 6.0+ GHz with enough volts, subject to CPU quality.
The only ones that might struggle are the ITX boards without enough EPS connectors.

According to some people like sugi, hitting 8,000 MHz with a decent 13th Gen chip isn't difficult at all. It's going beyond that that involves some IMC binning.

Ichirou · Nov 7, 2023

bhav said:
You can easily test that without needing multiple CPUs, set the motherboard to G4 and see if it stabilizes 8000 or not. If it doesn't, return it as defective.

My guess is that people that think its their IMC and not the board haven't actually tried this.

Yeah, sugi did something similar. He isolated the three different variables: RAM, motherboard, CPU.

To bin RAM, you test the highest frequency you can stabilize with one single stick of RAM in slot A1 and do it for each stick you'd like to test.
To bin the board, you'd have to do that for both slots in the primary channel. Either individually or together, depending on whether the CPU gives you difficulty when both slots are populated.

Then you can bin your CPU IMC for max frequency/tight timings and compare voltages to see which chip(s) need less than others at the same settings.
Which can either be done by keeping one frequency and timings setup and just testing for minimum voltages, or locking in specific voltages and testing for max frequency. Either way.

CPU IMC quality binning has been pretty straightforward, as good ones would require less and less VCCSA. And presumably the other IMC voltages as well.

kozmik · Nov 7, 2023

I would say its generally not good advice to suggest someone get a 4 DIMM board for overclocking on a 14900k, generally speaking 4 DIMMs is pointless and stresses the MC way too much. If you want to get a 14900k you should get a 2 DIMM board. Probably not what you would like to hear, but that's generally what you should do if you are wanting to get the most out of both your CPU & RAM respectively -- 4 DIMMs will limit you very severely.

Honestly 4 DIMM has always been kind of a scam loooong before DDR5 or 14th gen.

Ichirou · Nov 7, 2023

kozmik said:
I would say its generally not good advice to suggest someone get a 4 DIMM board for overclocking on a 14900k, generally speaking 4 DIMMs is pointless and stresses the MC way too much. If you want to get a 14900k you should get a 2 DIMM board. Probably not what you would like to hear, but that's generally what you should do if you are wanting to get the most out of both your CPU & RAM respectively -- 4 DIMMs will limit you very severely.

Honestly 4 DIMM has always been kind of a scam loooong before DDR5 or 14th gen.

The last time four DIMMs was actually meaningful was probably Z390, when T-Topology was still a thing.

Surprisingly, the MSI DDR4 quad DIMM boards for this generation are insanely strong--nearly as good as running dual DIMMs. Probably the only exception.

bhav · Nov 7, 2023

Ichirou said:
The last time four DIMMs was actually meaningful was probably Z390, when T-Topology was still a thing.

Surprisingly, the MSI DDR4 quad DIMM boards for this generation are insanely strong--nearly as good as running dual DIMMs. Probably the only exception.

As I mentioned, even the Mag Tommahawk D4 rated for 5333+ 1DPC, I've taken it up to 5400 stable in G2.

Its not 'defective' that it can't do that in G1, as what people assume I am saying, and it didn't even matter if it couldn't do 5333 in G2 because G1 is all you want to run DDR4 at.

Neo_Morpheus · Nov 7, 2023

What about the new 2x48gb sticks?, they should be able to get up there, I would say more so than 4 DIMMS

Framechasers said he couldn't get any XMP to work on 8000, but I got lucky with my ram type and CPU, and it worked on 8200 lol

bhav · Nov 7, 2023

Neo_Morpheus said:
What about the new 2x48gb sticks?, they should be able to get up there, I would say more so than 4 DIMMS

Framechasers said he couldn't get any XMP to work on 8000, but I got lucky with my ram type and CPU, and it worked on 8200 lol

Those would be dual rank so should be easier than 4xSR.

All the motherboard manufacturers now list their ram overclocking capability as 1DCH SR to 2DPC DR, so you can easily check the advertised specification then test against it by using gear 4.

As it turns out, most of those claims for DDR5 4 slot boards are wholly inaccurate and overrated by at least 200 Mhz.

bhav · Nov 7, 2023

kozmik said:
I would say its generally not good advice to suggest someone get a 4 DIMM board for overclocking on a 14900k, generally speaking 4 DIMMs is pointless and stresses the MC way too much. If you want to get a 14900k you should get a 2 DIMM board. Probably not what you would like to hear, but that's generally what you should do if you are wanting to get the most out of both your CPU & RAM respectively -- 4 DIMMs will limit you very severely.

Honestly 4 DIMM has always been kind of a scam loooong before DDR5 or 14th gen.

People who actually overclock ram should also be emailing Asrock and MSI and putting in a suggestion / request that they would be more interested in 2 dimm slot boards, otherwise it will pretty much never happen on anything but an $800 or such Asus board.

Neo_Morpheus · Nov 7, 2023

That's what I was thinking about the MSI 790i edge, 12 layers make it a little bigger with full power delivery but smaller than the Apex and save where you can, necessary things on the board.

ahoypolloi · Nov 7, 2023

kozmik said:
I would say its generally not good advice to suggest someone get a 4 DIMM board for overclocking on a 14900k, generally speaking 4 DIMMs is pointless and stresses the MC way too much. If you want to get a 14900k you should get a 2 DIMM board. Probably not what you would like to hear, but that's generally what you should do if you are wanting to get the most out of both your CPU & RAM respectively -- 4 DIMMs will limit you very severely.

Honestly 4 DIMM has always been kind of a scam loooong before DDR5 or 14th gen.

Spending an extra 400 for ability to overclock ram doesnt make much sense unless already running a 4090. Unless done strictly for benchmarking, better performance comes from putting the money into gpu.

ahoypolloi · Nov 7, 2023

bhav said:
People who actually overclock ram should also be emailing Asrock and MSI and putting in a suggestion / request that they would be more interested in 2 dimm slot boards, otherwise it will pretty much never happen on anything but an $800 or such Asus board.

The piece of pie that is high end 2 dimm boards does not get any bigger with more entries in that space. All they can hope to do is steal market from other brands.

Cryptedvick · Nov 7, 2023

Ichirou said:
The last time four DIMMs was actually meaningful was probably Z390, when T-Topology was still a thing.

Surprisingly, the MSI DDR4 quad DIMM boards for this generation are insanely strong--nearly as good as running dual DIMMs. Probably the only exception.

I can certify to this, running 4 DIMMs on my DDR4 Edge at 4133Mhz with the below timings, stable, with 1.25v SA, 1.35v VDDQTX, and 1.536v VDIMM.

The only thing worth it these days for DDR5 is the Apex/Encore but you really have to pay a good premium for that to get 8000+ Mhz, only to edge out a few mere % points in benchmarks and maybe some games. Just not worth it ... I've said it before, until DDR5 is matured and we have 8000Mhz CL30 kits working out of the box easily, its just not worth it. I reckon by Intel's 16th gen it will be worth it all around upgrading to fast DDR5.

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Hequaqua · Nov 7, 2023

Gigabyte is trash?.....really?

My 6400 kit can do 8k. It won't crash anything, but I haven't messed with enough to have it pass memory testing.

So....I run 7733. Stable outside of Windows mem testing, and in Windows.

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BoostedTTS6 · Nov 7, 2023

From what I am gathering my best options seem to be (going from cheapest to most expensive). Please be free to chime in if i am getting something wrong:

- Keep my Aorus Elite AX board and just run two of 2x16gb 6400mhz ram I already have (for better memory overclocking vs running 4 sticks) or try to run the max verified ram speed of 7600mhz on it with 2x24gb sticks.

- Try the Asrock Nova z790 board (as there seems to be alot of talk of it being a great board for the money and at $280ish it's rather cheap) with the 2x16gb 6400mhz ram I already have with the option to run 2x24gb of 8000mhz ram. The other plus to getting this board for me is being able to use my gen 5 ssd. Still not really much of an upgrade outside possibly +400mhz ram and being able to use the gen 5 ssd at its rated speed over my current board.

- Lastly go with the Asus Apex Encore board which to get any benefit using this board would require 2x24gb of 8200+mhz ram. Also has gen 5 m.2 onboard. But even at that I am looking at maybe +600mhz ram speed over my current board running 2 sticks.

Seems like the CPU overclocking is gonna be fine either way but may require slightly more voltage on my Aorus Elite AX board vs something like the Nova or Apex? Or would the CPU overclocking be much more stable?

I don't mind spending the money on quality parts, spending the $650 on the Apex board isn't out of the question but outside of being able to run +600mhz ram and gen 5 ssd seems to be the only real benefits?

bhav · Nov 7, 2023

Note that if you use a gen 5 SSD, it halves the PCI-E lanes to the GPU.

Ichirou · Nov 7, 2023

BoostedTTS6 said:
From what I am gathering my best options seem to be (going from cheapest to most expensive). Please be free to chime in if i am getting something wrong:

- Keep my Aorus Elite AX board and just run two of 2x16gb 6400mhz ram I already have (for better memory overclocking vs running 4 sticks) or try to run the max verified ram speed of 7600mhz on it with 2x24gb sticks.

- Try the Asrock Nova z790 board (as there seems to be alot of talk of it being a great board for the money and at $280ish it's rather cheap) with the 2x16gb 6400mhz ram I already have with the option to run 2x24gb of 8000mhz ram. The other plus to getting this board for me is being able to use my gen 5 ssd. Still not really much of an upgrade outside possibly +400mhz ram and being able to use the gen 5 ssd at its rated speed over my current board.

- Lastly go with the Asus Apex Encore board which to get any benefit using this board would require 2x24gb of 8200+mhz ram. Also has gen 5 m.2 onboard. But even at that I am looking at maybe +600mhz ram speed over my current board running 2 sticks.

Seems like the CPU overclocking is gonna be fine either way but may require slightly more voltage on my Aorus Elite AX board vs something like the Nova or Apex? Or would the CPU overclocking be much more stable?

I don't mind spending the money on quality parts, spending the $650 on the Apex board isn't out of the question but outside of being able to run +600mhz ram and gen 5 ssd seems to be the only real benefits?

As a piece of rookie advice, just know that memory overclocking doesn't contribute a significant amount of performance to the entire build.
A +1,000 MHz increase in memory frequency with tight timings might only translate to around +100 to +200 MHz on the CPU cores, at best.

So from a value proposition, it really just isn't there. Buying high-end motherboards strictly for memory overclocking is also strictly for enthusiasts only.
You'll find yourself investing hundreds of dollars just for a ~5% improvement in performance, if even that.

bhav · Nov 7, 2023

And then you get endless requests from the 'average user' struggling to OC their ram or even run XMP because they bought a 4 slot board, or worse Gigabyte.

'Help, I cant get 5600 stable, is my IMC bad?'

No its the gigabyte board, they aren't good at OCing ram.

'Lol not according to Buildzoid, theres nothing wrong with Gigabyte boards, they are just as good as Asus'.

Whatever.

BoostedTTS6 · Nov 7, 2023

bhav said:
Note that if you use a gen 5 SSD, it halves the PCI-E lanes to the GPU.

Right, which a gen 5 pcie lane running at x8 is equal to pcie x16 bandwidth from my understanding? I also believe I heard even running a 4090 can't make use of all the bandwidth of pcie 4.0 x16?

bhav · Nov 7, 2023

BoostedTTS6 said:
Right, which a gen 5 pcie lane running at x8 is equal to pcie x16 bandwidth from my understanding? I also believe I heard even running a 4090 can't make use of all the bandwidth of pcie 4.0 x16?

While that might be true, I'm sure the extra speed of a gen 5 drive is even less impactful.

You could do what I have and use Raid 0 on gen 4 drives, 13k read speeds, no loss of PCI-E lanes.

According to this, even at 4K you lose 2% performance running a 4090 at 8x instead of 16x, so you need to consider if you would actually get more than that from a gen 5 drive, IMO I don't think you would:

GeForce RTX 4090 and Core i9-13900K PCIe scaling test shows 2% difference between x16 and x8 modes - VideoCardz.com

TPU’s updated PCI Express scaling test with new games and Intel platform TechPowerUP has a new edition of their PCIe scaling test featuring Intel Core i9-13900K processor and RTX 4090 GPU. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition, Source: TechSpot PCI Express (PCIe) is a standard interface for...

videocardz.com

Best 4 Dimm board for overclocking i9-14900k

Ichirou

Ichirou

Ichirou

kozmik

Ichirou

bhav

Neo_Morpheus

bhav

bhav

Neo_Morpheus

ahoypolloi

ahoypolloi

Cryptedvick

Hequaqua

BoostedTTS6

bhav

Ichirou

bhav

BoostedTTS6

bhav

GeForce RTX 4090 and Core i9-13900K PCIe scaling test shows 2% difference between x16 and x8 modes - VideoCardz.com

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