128GB RAM on X99 platform with 5820K? No problem!

[xkm1948]

Before my attempt many people told me this is impossible. Quoting from Intel's ARK website claiming that Haswell-E series can only support up to 64GB of RAM. However there are already evidence that this can be done.

So first here is today's focus. GSKill DDR4-3000 128GB quad channel kit specifically for X99 platform.

Out with the old:

In with the new. The GSkill sets sit lower than the ADATA sets. So I was able to lower the fans of D15 to the point they can blow onto the RAM heatsink.

Now full inserted ALL EIGHT sticks!

I made sure to clear the CMOS settings before firing it up. Otherwise the board will probably be unable to recognize the new RAM modules. BAM! It works right off the bat!

I was able to get it run at DDR4-3200 with 14-14-14-35 timing. Pretty impressive. However it would need 1.4V for DRAM to get it stable! Too high for my liking.

In the end I decided to give up 100BCLK and used default XMP settings for daily usage. 125BCLK will cost me the lovely feature of adaptive vcore, but at least I can still use offset mode for power saving.

Stability test passed without a problem. 4hrs of ASUS Realbench with RAM limit set to 64GB, 4 hrs of AIDA64 stress on all system components. 4hrs on Google linux mint memory test as well.

Some information and basic benchmarking

Overall I am very satifsied with the awesome quality of the GSkill memory. I used GSkill DDR2-1000 8GB kit on my old QX9650 platform for almost 8 yrs. This 128GB kit will serve me well in the next 8 yrs.

 

[xkm1948]

I believe my 5820K's IMC quality is superb. Handling 128GB RAM at 3000MHz speed with low timing is just awesome.

 

[NdMk2o1o]

That's hardware pr0n right there... Nice looking rams and very sexy looking with all 8 sticks in there, congrats man, I am ever so slightly jealous

 

[theonedub]

Load up those genetics programs and prove to the doubters how much RAM they can effectively use

DNA methylation, CpG islands, snRNPs, non-coding RNA- almost makes me want to crack open my old genetics textbooks

 

[xkm1948]

That's hardware pr0n right there... Nice looking rams and very sexy looking with all 8 sticks in there, congrats man, I am ever so slightly jealous

Yeah I was fapping my e-pen last night installing this. lol



Seriously speaking these babes gonna cut down the amount of time I need to assemble contig reads probably in half at least. I am excited. Next week I will get two full reads of raw human genome and I will do assembly on both of them. Can't wait to see it blast through it.

My next stage aim is setting up 4 virtual machines, each with access to 30GB of RAM. That way I will have my personal super computing cluster at home. Money money money!

 

[xkm1948]

Load up those genetics programs and prove to the doubters how much RAM they can effectively use

DNA methylation, CpG islands, snRNPs, non-coding RNA- almost makes me want to crack open my old genetics textbooks

These programs can chew through 1TB of RAM. I saw it on the super computing clusters. It was fu*cking amazing.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

The program attached to this post can easily consume terabytes worth of memory if the grid is sufficiently large enough and the number of possible paths is sufficiently deep enough. 10x10 can take it up to 16-18 GiB on occassion.


Processors do have a maximum supported memory amount (e.g. 40-bits) but Intel/AMD generally doesn't advertise it. If higher density sticks of memory don't work, it is usually the motherboard BIOS/firmware to blame.

 

[Frick]

You now have more RAM than I have storage space in my laptop. That's pretty surreal.

 

[cadaveca]

Processors do have a maximum supported memory amount (e.g. 40-bits) but Intel/AMD generally doesn't advertise it. If higher density sticks of memory don't work, it is usually the motherboard BIOS/firmware to blame.

The X99 platform launched with a max 64 GB, but subsequent micro-code updates (brought about by ASUS/G.Skill working with Intel) increased that ability up to 128GB. This same micro-code should be present in nearly any X99 board's BIOS at this point. If you can run 2666 MHz on 100 BCLK (you could not at launch, or 2800, or 3000), then you should be good to go. When the platform launched, you had 2133 MHz, 2400 MHz, and then 3200 MHz as the only working dividers on 100 BCLK, and the rest required 125 BCLK or greater. Today is a different story with most boards (there are still a few stragglers who have not got proper updates).

 

[xkm1948]

The X99 platform launched with a max 64 GB, but subsequent micro-code updates (brought about by ASUS/G.Skill working with Intel) increased that ability up to 128GB. This same micro-code should be present in nearly any X99 board's BIOS at this point. If you can run 2666 MHz on 100 BCLK (you could not at launch, or 2800, or 3000), then you should be good to go. When the platform launched, you had 2133 MHz, 2400 MHz, and then 3200 MHz as the only working dividers on 100 BCLK, and the rest required 125 BCLK or greater. Today is a different story with most boards (there are still a few stragglers who have not got proper updates).

Strange enough for me. DDR4-2666 will not boot on these sticks with 100BCLK. Probably because selecting DDR4-2666 the timing will automatically adjust to 11-11-11-34

DDR4-3000 is rock solid with XMP settings.

DDR4-3200 can boot on 100BCLK but require very high VCCSA and DRAM Voltage to stay stable.

 

[cadaveca]

Because you have a Sabertooth, and not an ROG board, I do not find that surprising. But you can run 3000 on 100 BCLK? Then the microcode update is present. 2666 used to be 2133 divider w/ 125 BCLK and 3000 was 2400 divider on 125.

Early 3000 MHz quad sets (such as the C15 sticks I reviewed) had different XMP profiles than newer sets, and the older sticks used 125 BCLK.

But now that we are nearly into 2 years after the platform launched (iirc I had my first X99 samples in late june, early july 2014), a lot has changed with X99. We had the USB 3.1 updates to many boards, etc...

ASUS and G.Skill were the first to be showing 128 GB running, iirc, around a year ago now, so you should never have any problems with those brands combo'd up. My ASUS X99 DELUXE can run pretty much any divider on 100 BCLK without any issues at all (it's currently running those 3000 C15 modules w/100 BCLK)

 

[qubit]

Wow 128 gigs!

It's great to see that the rig can take double what it's rated for. How much did all that RAM cost you then?

 

[xkm1948]

Wow 128 gigs!

It's great to see that the rig can take double what it's rated for. How much did all that RAM cost you then?

It was $700. I had a newegg gift card and a Chase promotion rebate too good to pass.

 

[jaggerwild]

DROLLING!
so clean, I wanted to ask won't that big a load of ram put undue stress on the CPU or A CPU? What cooling are you using on the CPU? Very nice RIG!!!

 

[xkm1948]

DROLLING!
so clean, I wanted to ask won't that big a load of ram put undue stress on the CPU or A CPU? What cooling are you using on the CPU? Very nice RIG!!!

Thanks!

It surely is putting a lot of stress on the IMC.

Using Noctua D15 to cool it. Pretty good temp actually. Right now CPU is clocked at 4.25GHz with 1.19V vcore, load line calibration at level 3.

 

[Aquinus]

In defense of Intel, 64GB is probably what is officially supported however, the ark page does say and I'll quote; "Max Memory Size (dependent on memory type)". Just as my 3820 can only support 64GB but, can run 128GB if and only if I used Intelligent Memory DDR3 DIMMs (which support was added for on the latest BIOS update for my P9X79 Deluxe.) So I could run 128GB of DDR3 but, it would cost an arm and a leg.

Either way, that's a great find though. Thanks for sharing.

 

[xkm1948]

This will show you why I need 128GB RAM. Hell if possible I would to have more.

Human genome size is 3 billion base pair. One 10X coverage raw sequence run usually takes 2~3 days to assemble on those Xeon clusters. With my old 32GB RAM sometime it would even crash. 128GB RAM is barely the entrance requirement for such job.

 

[xkm1948]

A different type of assembler.

 

[dj-electric]

Before my attempt many people told me this is impossible

People are kinda stupid, at least most of them
Mobo BIOS updates won't mention 16GB stick updates for nothing
This is similar to the P55 case, when 8GB DIMMS came out and actually allowed 32GB setups in boards to be available.

 

[xkm1948]

People are kinda stupid, at least most of them
Mobo BIOS updates won't mention 16GB stick updates for nothing
This is similar to the P55 case, when 8GB DIMMS came out and actually allowed 32GB setups in boards to be available.

And people used to tell me that my i7-q720 only supports up to 8GB of RAM. Until I installed a 16GB kit on my wife's laptop.

 

[RealNeil]

128GB of RAM is a lofty goal for most of us.

My X99 build has 64GB waiting for when I can afford a CPU. I imagine I'll probably take half of it out and use it in another PC someday.

 

[cdawall]

I didn't realize people didn't know this worked. I have built 3 rigs like this at work already with anything from the bottom of the barrel asrock boards and up.

 

[RejZoR]

You can also fill so much RAM by using 7zip with LZMA2 ultra preset and 1536 MB dictionary. It'll munch away over 100 GB of RAM with 12 threads on 5820K

 

[R-T-B]

Fun fact, many X58 boards can support up to 48GBs of DDR3, if you can find those somewhat rare 8GB sticks...

 

[Aquinus]

Fun fact, many X58 boards can support up to 48GBs of DDR3, if you can find those somewhat rare 8GB sticks...

8GB sticks aren't rare, they're just not cheap. The 16GB IM modules are expensive, rare, and certainly not cheap because they go for as much as 200-300 a stick.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UMA2IZ8/?tag=tec06d-20