Any Reason Not To Run The RAM In The RT-AC68U At Its Full Rating?

[Paralel]

Is there any reason not to run the RAM in the RT-AC68U at the full 800 MHz for which it is rated?

Is there any reason why it was set to 533 (then 667) by ASUS?

 

[L&LD]

If your specific router works stable at the higher frequency, use it.

That is simply the minimum that all supplied RAM was guaranteed to work at.

Do note that higher speeds will incur a hotter running router.

 

[Paralel]

Is there any way to check the temps my router is currently running at through the command prompt on the page linked below?

https://192.168.1.1/Main_AdmStatus_Content.asp

Also, what is the maximum memory clock the BCM4708A can handle? I though I read DDR3-1600, but I hear that is a particular feature for the BCM4709A instead.

 

[L&LD]

No, not 1600MHz afaik; 800MHz is maximum. (The RAM modules might support that frequency; the SoC does not).

 

[KGB7]

/facepalm


CPU is not ram. They are not one unity.

 

[RMerlin]

Is there any reason not to run the RAM in the RT-AC68U at the full 800 MHz for which it is rated?

Is there any reason why it was set to 533 (then 667) by ASUS?

The chips might support 800 MHz, however that does not mean the whole router design does. For instance, it's possible that 800 MHz would require a higher voltage to be supplied to the chips to work reliably. Or, additional design considerations with the PCboard layout might be required (such as maximum allowed trace length).

 

[RMerlin]

/facepalm


CPU is not ram. They are not one unity.

He's referring to the memory controlled embedded with the SoC. The BCM4709 supports up to DDR3-1600 MHz RAM, don't remember what's the limit of what the 4708 supports.

 

[KGB7]

He's referring to the memory controlled embedded with the SoC. The BCM4709 supports up to DDR3-1600 MHz RAM, don't remember what's the limit of what the 4708 supports.

RAM rating, not controller rating. Two separate things.

 

[TeMpL]

nvram set clkfreq=1200,800 works fine.. (at least on my rt-ac68u)

 

[RMerlin]

RAM rating, not controller rating. Two separate things.

The controller is in the CPU chip. That's why his second post asked what the CPU could handle specifically, comparing the BCM4708 vs BCM4709.

 

[KGB7]

The controller is in the CPU chip. That's why his second post asked what the CPU could handle specifically, comparing the BCM4708 vs BCM4709.

You right, i need to stop posting while hungover.


I cant find any detailed specs on CPU or the RAM that is being used in AC68 Router. One of my guesses, is that RAM it self might not be designed to run safely above 800mhz, and lack of cooling. There for, Asus kept it at a safe level (667) to minimize long term damage.

 

[Paralel]

I figured they were being conservative with the design, thus running the RAM below its rated clock of 800 MHz (although, if they wanted to run at 667 I don't know why they didn't just use the same chip from ESMT that is rated for that, seems like it would cost less, maybe not?).

I haven't been able to find anything regarding the memory controller for the 4708x, that's why I posted; I figured the hardware guru's here would have more insight into what the memory controller was capable of.

No point in running the RAM at 800 MHz if the memory controller can't handle that frequency.

Also, for this version of the BCM4708A, is it actually speced at 800 MHz, or is it rated at 1 GHz and downclocked to 800 MHz (thus, another underclock in order to make the system run cooler)?

If no one knows, are there any commands I can run from the CLI to get it to spit out the information I wanted? I tried all the standard linux commands to query the processor and memory and got very little information out of them.

 

[RMerlin]

AFAIK, the BCM4708A default clock is 800 MHz. The BCM4709 is the one that defaults to 1 GHz.

 

[Paralel]

I like how Broadcom just makes it so easy to find out information about their processors...

Is it possible to load binaries from the USB drive and run them from the command line? There has to be some way to get this thing to talk.

 

[RMerlin]

I like how Broadcom just makes it so easy to find out information about their processors...

Sadly, this isn't specific to Broadcom. A lot of hardware manufacturers seem to think that by refusing to publish detailed specs online unless you directly contact them is going to give them some kind of competitive advantage. Whatever...

Is it possible to load binaries from the USB drive and run them from the command line? There has to be some way to get this thing to talk.

Sure, you can crosscompile your own binaries, but that won't give you any details about the hardware specifications.

 

[Paralel]

Ok. I give up. I'll just stick to the clocks Asus is using and believe that they are pushing every bit of performance out of this machine without it exploding in order to meet their enthusiast users expectations.

 

[Kris404]

nvram set clkfreq=1200,800 works fine.. (at least on my rt-ac68u)

Any tangible difference in performance or just placebo?

 

[RMerlin]

Any tangible difference in performance or just placebo?

Overclocking will help with OpenVPN, SMB sharing, and WAN-to-LAN throughout if you have HW acceleration disabled and a connection faster than 300 Mbits.

It won't have any effect on wireless or LAN performance.

 

[jonstatt]

The newer batches of these routers are already clocked at the higher speed anyway.

 

[Paralel]

The newer batches of these routers are already clocked at the higher speed anyway.

Define "higher speed" and which component are you talking about?