Mixing Corsair Vengeance 1600 and Kingston HyperX 2400

[edd1234]

Hi,

I had 8GB of Corsair Vengeance (1600MHz 9-9-9-24 1.5V) running on an Sabertooth Z77 with an i7-3770k.
The PC was running on the "XMP" profile of that RAM, so it was running at 1600MHz, and my board put the CPU speed up to 4.1GHz.

I had some 8GB Kingston HyperX 2400MHz CL11 that wasn't being used in another build, and wanted to use that, because the idea of 16GB or RAM sounded fairly appealing, so I installed it.

The PC booted without a problem, and I went straight into the UEFI bios to check the RAM speeds. The two XMP profiles available were both being read off the Kingston HyperX - so only 2133 and 2400 were available. These were both set at 1.65V, so I didn't try them for fear of breaking of the Corsair Vengeance sticks. I set it to "Auto" and it reported the "Target DRAM Speed" as 1600MHz, which I was happy with, so I left it at that.

I've rebooted and opened up CPU-Z, and it's told me the RAM's running at 670.1 MHz, which as far as I know, is 1333. (http://prntscr.com/3bs8x2).

Here is a shot of the Kingston RAM: http://prntscr.com/3bs9bw
and the Corsair: http://prntscr.com/3bs9i0

What are my options?
I understand that 1600 is only the rated speed for the Corsair, and it could run faster, but I have no idea whether letting it run at the higher voltage off the XMP profile is OK. Or should I try and set the speeds manually?

Edit: I did a little reading, and from what I read trying out different RAM speeds won't damage it, it'll just make the PC unstable, so I enabled the 2133 XMP Profile.
CPU-Z is now reporting: http://prntscr.com/3bsdcc
I ran Prime95 on "Blend" and it's detected Hardware Failures: http://prntscr.com/3bsdlp , so I'm going to put it back the RAM back to "Auto" and try Prime95 again.

Edit2: Put it back to "Auto" so the sticks are now running at 1333MHz. Prime95 hasn't reported any errors, and it's been running for 20 minutes (it picked them up last time within 1-2 minutes). I'd like to get them all at 1600MHz. What's the best way of doing this?

[ajones]

I'd manually configure the parameters for all 4 sticks as per the settings derived for the Corsair RAM when they run the XMP (1600 / 1.5V) mode.

If Prime doesn't work, I'd consider just using the Kingston RAM, but stick with 8GB. You probably won't notice the difference between the 8 and 16GB anyway, and only a minor difference (normally - don't know what you're running) when running the faster RAM. I've not bothered tinkering with memory settings for years; lots of faffing about for minimal improvements.

As for voltage (1.5 vs 1.65) this is more to protect the memory controller of the CPU isn't it?

[Bonebreaker777]

I would manually set all the modules to 1600Mhz with 9-9-9-24 timings and 1.5V.

You could try faster, like 18600Mhz @ 10-10-10-28 @ 1.5V and test on Memtest95. But as said previously, the actual benefits would be negligible. Nearly as much as having 16GB and never actually use it

If you are having a lot of free time lately, you could find the most optimal memory settings for your modules while being stable.