RAM overclocking is generally necessary for those game enthusiasts who want to use more speed of their RAMs. and the concept is that in order to fully utilize your computer’s RAM you have to overlock it.
Now a DDR4 RAM is a kind of synchronous dynamic type random access memory. The DDR4 RAMs come with a high bandwidth capacity. First released in 2014 the DDR4 RAM is the latest version of the DDR version.
But here a question arrives that overlocking a RAM makes how much difference in the performance of your system. The answer is that it impacts a lot. You have to ask yourself what do you exactly want, more memory space on your RAM or more speed.
Now the basic idea here lies in the question of why you need to overclock your RAM.
RAM Overclocking-why it is needed
Different Rams come with different frequencies or speeds. But you can never utilize the full speed of the ram unless you overlock it. If you take a look at the backside of your RAM you will see that the speed of your RAM is limited to a certain frequency.
That is normally gamers overlock their rams to get the full speed of their rams without any limitations. Apart from just delivering great speed overlocking also increases the FPS of games and your system becomes more stable during multitasking.
While playing heavy games an overlocked game increases the CPU capacity so that your system does not break down in the middle of the game. That’s is why when we took a review on the overlocking of RAM from the gamers, most of them said that more Ram speed is much necessary than more memory on Ram.
Things to keep in mind before overclocking RAM
Here is the first thing that you should keep in mind before overlocking your RAM. In the first place if you have overlocked your system processor by increasing the base lock, then you ram should have also overlocked a little bit. Therefore, if this is the case then you have to change the voltage, frequency, and timings of your memory.
Now before completely you overlock your Ram check the following things :
Check the current speed of your RAM
The current speed of your RAM is one of the major things you should check before you properly overclock your RAM. Therefore, to check your RAM speed go to the task manager. From the task manager go to the performance tab.
You can check the current speed of your RAM by going to the memory section.
Identify suitable speed for your ram
Before overclocking your RAM, the most important question you should ask yourself that at how much speed you should set your overlocking speed too.
On a general note, all the DDR4 RAms are locked at the speed at 2133Mhz. But most of the DDR4 rams are sold at speeds o 2400Mhz,2666Mhz, 3200Mhz, 4000Mhz. The best thing about overlocking DDR4 ram is that you can get up to a double the rate of the fixed speed.
Terms of Overlocking you should know
While going through the overlocking procedures you may encounter some terms which you have never heard before. So in order to get a smooth and uninterrupted overlocking procedure, you should get a prerequisite knowledge about these terms.
RAS and CAS:
The term RAS stands for Row Access Strobe and the term CAS stands for Column Access Strobe. These are nothing but memory models.
CAS Latency:
This term refers to the time period in between which the CPU is requesting for data a the ram is sending the data.
RAS to CAS delay:
The time is taken to line up the CAS and RAS in the memory slot.
Active to pre-charge delay:
The memory seizure time period. This function is also termed as tRAS.
RAS pre-charge:
The time is taken to disable one RAS line and activate the adjacent RAS line. This is also known as RTP.
Note: there is no way you can overlock your RAM with the help of software.
Overclocking a DDR4 ram-Step by Step Guide
There are only two ways you can overlock your RAM. That is either by using XMP or by Custom overlocking.
On a brief note, XMP is the abbreviation of the Extreme Memory Profile. This is basically a list of preset profiles that need to enabled or activated in order to automatically overlock your RAM memory modules. But most of the users face some kind of difficulties when they try to overlock their rams using the XMP procedure.
That is according to us the best way to overlock your ram is by the procedure of custom RAM overclocking method. But that does not mean that the XMP process does not work properly.
The good thing is that we are going to discuss both the procedures in this article so that you get a better overview of the total overlocking procedure.
Custom overlocking
Custom overlocking is the safest way to overlock your RAM. This is a very much true fact as by this procedure you can overlock the RAM according to the system capabilities.
In the below list you will find the procedure to overlock RAM on different motherboards.
DDR4 RAM Custom overlocking on ASUS motherboard
Follow the steps to overlock your RAM on ASUS motherboard
Open the bios setup menu by pressing the “F2” button and “Del” altogether in the time of starting or restarting your system.
Now to go the advance settings options
From here select the AI Tweaker or the Overlocking tab
Set the AI overlocking Tuner to XMP (extreme memory profile)
Here you will find the option to set the desired frequency of your DDR4 RAM.
Now select Save and Exit option and your PC will automatically restart itself.
DDR4 RAM Overclocking on MSI keyboards
If you are using an MSI keyboard then follow the below steps to overclock your DDR4 RAM.
Press F2 and Del button altogether to open the bios menu (while starting or restarting your PC).
From the bios setup click on the OC tab and will automatically overlock your RAM up to the highest possible frequency.
But if you disable the XMP then you have to shift to manual mode.
Now in the manual mode, you have the liberty to overlock your RAM and increase the speed from the option saying, ”Adjust DRAM Frequency”.
Save and exit from the bios setup and let your system restart itself.
DDR4 RAM Overclocking on GIGABYTE Motherboards
Follow the steps to overclock your DDR4 ram on GIGABYTE Motherboards.
Open the bios setup menu by pressing F2 and Del altogether at the time of operating system booting.
In the bios setup window, you will find a tab named M.I.T. from where you can overlock your RAM.
To do that, simply click on the XMP option and then the “+” button. The active manual mode will be enabled.
Then you have to select the memory frequency and click on the “‘+” button to adjust your desired frequency.
XMP overclocking
.XMP is the abbreviation of Extreme Memory Profiles. Being a part of the intel technology XMP is a great and easy way to overlock your DDR4 RAM. Overlocking RAM by the XMP process allows you to choose multiple memory settings.
Overlocking your RAM using XMP is very much simple no matter what motherboard you are using. In most common cases an XMP provides one to three different profiles to choose from. Now select any one of the profiles and restart your PC to get your RAM overlocked.
But if you are overlocking your RAM by using XMP then you should keep one thing in mind that once you do this then your PC’s power supply or your RAM might not work well in the future with the overlocked sped.
Basically XMP is for high-end RAMs that are powered by high-end power supplies.
Final Word
If you are a hardcore gaming enthusiast and want to play heavy games without any kind of interruptions then overlocking your RAM might be the best option for you. As it is very much evident that RAM overclocking increases the speed or frequency of the RAM.
So don’t give any second thought and overlock your DDR4 RAM today only by following the above-mentioned procedures.
