Problem with Dominator® Platinum Series RGB 4000Mhz can run only up to 3467Mhz

I decide to add some memory to my system and from 32Gb go to 64Gb so a purchase CMT32GX4M2K4000C19 2 x 2x16Gb 4000Mhz I was also happy to add some RGB to my system. To my surprise XMP is not working and the system will not boot so I test each stick separately the system will still not booting, then I reset the bios and at 2133Mhz the system boot with no problem then I add the other sticks to 64 GB and boot at 2133 Mhz with no problem, system ran stable, them graduate from 2133Mhz and increasing speed manually to 3600Mhz where the system stopped booting again back to 3466MHz and the system ran again. The ironing is that the memory I was replacing was Dominator® Platinum Series CMD32GX4M4E4000C19 4X8Gb 32GB and the spec are the same: speed the same, timing 19-23-23-45 the same and I can run it at 4200Mhz without problem and the system run very stable, So what happens with the Corsair product, they can't even deliver to run the memory speed up to their specification? there are no excuses I do not have also a crappy motherboard or processor to blame ( Asus Ws x299 Sage/10 / intel I9-7980xe) Edited December 10, 2019 by tbox

So you are trying to 64GB from three different kits at 4000 MHz on X299? Yes, you do have your work cut out for you.

If you had cared to check the memory QVL posted by ASUS for your WS 299 SAGE/10G motherboard, you will find that the qualified DDR4 memory modules at 4000 and above are all single-ranked and 8GB in capacity. The memory sticks in your Dominator Platinum CMT32GX4M2K4000C19 2x16GB memory kit are dual-ranked and they are not in the QVL.

 

I've also discovered empirically that 4000 dual-ranked (e.g. 16GB) memory is virtually impossible to get working with any system. I have a Vengeance LPX CMK32GX4M2F4000C19 2x16GB kit that cannot run at 4000 (XMP profile) with any of my Z390 ASUS or ASRock motherboards and Core i7-8700K & i7-8700T processors. The upper operational memory speed limit for dual-ranked 16GB memory appears to be 3600 or 3733 in specific system configurations.

 

So it looks like one often cannot achieve both top memory capacity and top memory speed with the same system. This is indicated by the memory QVL lists of various X299 and Z390 motherboards not showing any qualified 16GB (dual-ranked) modules above 3800. If you want 4000 or even higher speed you'll need to stick with 8GB (single-ranked) modules. With 16GB (dual-ranked) modules you'll have to settle for 3733 or 3800 at the highest.

Thanks, guys for sharing I guess I should research more not just buying what I thought are the top of the line memory. My reasoning was if this work with 8 GB it will work with 16 GB.

From the corsair support, I got a quick and straight answer "It isn't compatible with your motherboard "Compatibility Intel 300 Series"

Looking into QVL it's another story, the list was last updated 2018/07/03 and doesn't even show Corsair CMD32GX4M4E4000C19 which I run on my board at 4133 MHz 19-23-23-45 with no problems.

It looks like they just make the list at the launch of the product and after the first year, the list is not getting updated anymore. Unfortunately, for the first users of some products, it becomes the technique “Buy and Try” and either it works or you waste money and learn something.

So at this point, I ran 64gb with 3467Mhz at 17-18-18-36 not as fast I was hoping but with a little better timing. I will try more settings but probably can’t get squeeze anything more and wondering if the 3600mhz or 3466Mhz module will run the same at half of the cost. Probably I should mention either one is not available to buy. The other option is to add Corsair CMD32GX4M4E4000C19 and only be able to run 64GB and lose the RGB but again the modules are hard to find and are not cheap either.

In future upgrades, I will start research more deeply, this is the second time I did the same research mistake with this system build, first was with ASUS Hyper M.2 x16 Card. After purchase the add card I learn that bifurcation is not an option on my motherboard, so I used four individual PCI-e slots to accomplish this configuration.

Then another surprise that only Intel drives (Not the fastest drives on the market) are supported for Vroc and able to boot the system. Then another surprise that Intel 760p is not good either but only professional drives 7600p, at the end, I found that if I want running any other RAID than RAID 0 you need Intel Key another expansive gadget I make the system run at (read 10360mb/s write 5516mb/s and waste a lot of cash.

Edited December 11, 2019 by tbox