Upgrading RAM for a 7-year-old Z170 i5-6600K. Is it possible to use 3200/3600MHz memory? Should we worry about QVL?
Upgrading RAM for a 7-year-old Z170 i5-6600K. Is it possible to use 3200/3600MHz memory? Should we worry about QVL?
Lately mismatched sticks didn't cause issues, but a 6600k with two very different DDR4 kits might work. The clock settings used could be unreliable for one, and possibly even the memory controllers. It's worth testing them without XMP to observe the outcome.
Considering the 3600Mhz kit, what if it doesn't perform at that frequency? Could you simply reduce the speed and keep adjusting until it functions properly? Wouldn't lowering it further risk damaging the whole system? And if it doesn't work with the 6600k system, could it still be useful for another purpose down the line?
Bottlenecking your CPU just cause you can is just as dumb. THE CPU is the car, not the gpu. the GPU is just an accelerator. a new turbo you could say. People in this forum really need to get over their fear of there EVER being a single millisecond the GPU has to wait for a CPU. There will ALWAYS be a bottleneck, its how severe it is that should be the question, not if one exists. Because ONE DOES. if no bottleneck existed computers would be infinitely fast, some part of the pipeline is ALWAYS waiting for some other part of the pipeline. That's why Amdahl's Law is a Law. Like when I took a 3060 on an i7 2600k to a r7 7700x, in Shadow of the tomb raider I only went from 67 avg fps, 53 at 95%, 35 at 99.9% to 91 average with a 69 at 95%, 66 at 99.9%. That is a HELL of a lot of money to spend on not even 50% boost in fps. You get a bigger boost going from a 1060 to the 3060. which is a hella cheap upgrade. Like yes the CPU bottleneck exists, but its not some super spooky thing to be avoided. OP has a 6600k, dude is more then fine. realisticly the loss of FPS isnt going to be enough that it is worth spending 500 dollars to gain 15% fps. The reason why mismatched sticks might mater here is because of the time difference (2015 manufacture date and 2022) is that there probably isnt a single subtiming that matches in the spec. 99 times out of 100 mismatched would not really matter. There are no new systems worth while that use DDR4 anymore, yes intel 13th gen can use it, but they do lose significant performance on it, and I assume you are not looking to get on a new platform inside the year anyways. 12th gen can take it or leave it. Next year intel chips will be exclusive to DDR5.
I understand, similar to how we won’t see CL40 DDR5 6000 models in a few years when most kits run at lower speeds. I don’t agree with your tweak to the analogy, but we can find common ground. We’re not comparing upgrading to a 10600k or even a Ryzen 2600; we’re discussing a genuine first-generation DDR4 processor from 2015. A bit faster RAM could help, but moving from 55% utilization to 60% versus 80% to 100% changes the situation entirely. In short, their RTX 3060 sits at 6600k, which is fine—retiring working gear makes sense after all that use. My 4790k kept running well from 2014 through 2021, even though it was a bottleneck for my GTX 1080. Consider keeping it as a backup or using it for a home theater setup, just like I’ve done with my hardware upgrades. Smart TVs aren’t worth it; a PC with a browser and basic input isn’t the same.
He’s focusing more on stability than raw speed, though it should help maintain performance at 2666MT/s. The mismatched memory will slow things down compared to a standard 2400MT/s setup because it forces the system to adjust timing parameters. From what I noticed, no other titles behaved this way. Not running on a 2400 might actually extend the system’s lifespan before needing upgrades like Zen 5 or Meteor Lake.
Sure, begin gradually until it functions properly. The worst possible outcome is damaging your Windows installation, though that rarely occurs (I've only experienced this once after extensive memory tuning). It's not a total failure—just run memory stress tests at the speed you need before using your main OS.
You could opt for a 3200Mhz board. If it doesn’t perform, you can lower the speed until it works. Spending 90 Euros to get stability and performance back is worth it. When you eventually retire the system, I don’t want to become tech support explaining why it failed—like needing a Cmos clear or something similar.
Consider that these benchmarks are pre-spectre/meltdown fixes that likely also impacted Skylake’s performance. In the worst scenario, an OP could simply send back whatever 3600MHz board they received. In the US, Best Buy’s return policy wouldn’t matter if you bought a DDR4 kit off the shelf and returned it the following day.
The key to configuring your RAM for the 6600k and 6700k is adjusting the DRAM voltage from 1.35v to 1.4v, while also increasing SA voltage and slightly tweaking VVCA settings. Perform a stress test with memory checks to avoid issues similar to what I experienced over the years. For the 6700k with 3200mhz RAM, I previously misconfigured the voltages and am now re-setting everything.