AMD, Intel, and motherboard manufacturers do qualify the CPUs and motherboards for "overclocked" (above JEDEC) memory speeds. The systems are designed to work at the overclocked transmission speeds. They need to be paired with memory modules that are capable of functioning at those speeds. With ECC presently being a datacenter thing, companies only make it according to JEDEC specs. If ECC were standard for everyone, then the pre-qualified overclocked "gaming" memory modules would be available in ECC configuration as well.

Without ECC, nobody knows if their memory is working or not. Regardless whether it is running a standard JEDEC speed or an overclocked one.

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adrian_b 3 days ago | parent [-]

The motherboard manufacturers test their motherboards, to ensure that they typically work with overclocked memory modules.

If you buy a complete gaming computer which includes overclocked memory, then hopefully the vendor has done a burn-in and has tested for some time the computer, as sold.

However, if you buy the CPU yourself, neither Intel nor AMD provides any guarantee that the CPU will work with overclocked memory.

It is upon you to test your assembled computer, but true tests would require a very long time and a climatic chamber, to offer any kind of certainty that the combination CPU-DIMMs works at the desired speed.

If you have ECC memory, you can try to overclock it and at least in this case you will know for sure if the memory works at the higher speed, or not.

Overclocking ECC memory is actually a method frequently used to verify whether the hardware ECC support and also the operating system EDAC driver work OK.

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willis936 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

The ECC on the GTX 1080 let me figure out the optimal overclock with the only feedback mechanism being benchmarked throughout.

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zargon 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> However, if you buy the CPU yourself, neither Intel nor AMD provides any guarantee that the CPU will work with overclocked memory.

There's no guarantee that it works with standard clocked memory either.

	▲	adrian_b 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Both AMD and Intel publish on their site, for each CPU model, the maximum supported memory speed. If the CPU does not work at that speed, you are entitled to a replacement or a refund. For instance, AMD Ryzen™ 9 9950X3D is guaranteed to work with DDR5-5600, but with nothing faster. No AMD non-server CPU goes above this limit for DDR5. Some of the Intel CPUs are guaranteed to work with faster memories, e.g. Core Ultra 9 285K with up to DDR5-6400, and the very recently launched Core Ultra 7 270K PLUS with up to DDR5-7200.