Windows 7 - Something very wrong with Corsair Vengance Timings

Ok...so I install my new ram, and I'm all very happy. A hour or two later I decide to run a benchmark on my ram. The benchmark says that my 16Gb of ram is only processing about 12Gb a second, when other benchmarks on the internet say Gb will do 20+ Gb/s. I open cpu-z, and pop over to the memory section, and I am greeted with this:



Somewhat worrying, although I assume that corsair would replace it considering their vengeance ram has a lifetime guarantee...but can anyone give a suggestion to what on Earth is happening here?

I may be missing something, but what don't you like about that screenshot?

Am I reading it wrong? The memory is meant to run at 1600mhz, and at no point there do I see 1600mhz, or a combination with the sum of 1600mhz. It appears to me as though it is under clocked or something?

I'm no expert either.

It looks to me like it is running at 1333 (666, double data rate).

It may be capable of running at 1600 (800, double data rate), for all I know.

Have you gone into the BIOS and attempted to set it to the higher speed?

Well the 2600k only supports 1333 mhz, so I wouldn't be surprised if it down clocked that, but in doing so it seems to have messed with the timings, I would expect them all to run at the same latencies, but here we have 2 at one timing, and 2 with different timings.

Here is your motherboard:

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD4-B3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

The specs say it supports up to 2133. As far as I know, the 2600K can use DDR 3 2133 if the motherboard supports it.

I am not sure I know how to read CPU-Z, but I would think that your screen shot shows that the RAM in slot 1 has timings of 9, 9, 9, 24, and 34.

I think if you want to see what the RAM in other slots is doing, you have to change away from "slot 1" in that drop down menu.

But I certainly stand to be corrected.

There's nothing wrong.

The RAM is running at DDR3 1333. (The frequency is 667 MHz, and the data rate is 2X that.)

That's the default. To get the DDR3 1600 rate, you'll have to use BIOS settings either to use the XMP profile, or set the frequency and timings manually. I did the latter, and am running 4 sticks of Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1866.

So, the XMP profile is tested and approved by the manufacturer yes? I set it to that and I get the manufacturer settings at 1600 mhz without messing around with timing stability and all that?

I would guess that if you choose XMP, you will get whatever timings go along with that profile.

But you may be able to ignore XMP and just set the speed manually. And then fiddle with the timings manually to see what is stable.

The issue is I have NO idea about over clocking anything, what the timings mean, and how to test for stability, I would be stabbing in the dark, I have tried to read tutorials but they still confuse me. I need a over clocking for dummies book :P