I get ya want to overclock, buy why on a rendering machine? Are those seconds saved worth loosing an entire render and having to restart / clear CMOS

The more ram the less stable overclocking will get. Hence why most rendering machines stick with JDEC timings

Feel free to ignore me as the most ram I’ve OC’d if 64gb

Hey thanks for your reply, are you saying memory training is only related to overclocking?

As no, i dont intend to overlock the machine. I dont know much about PC building and had seen some videos with people talking about memory training, i just assumed it was a part of the build/boot process for all machines.

I guess my question really is then, does having a very large amount of RAM have a negative effect on boot times, and is there any variation in that depending on the type of boot, cold/soft etc.

Ok, I may have misunderstood what you ment.

The more ram you have in a system the longer training can take. DDR5 is the worse offender. Don’t be surprised if it takes 10 min or more to train 192gb.

Memory training happens after every cold boot (from off state). Every PC will do this it is normal.

If you’re not overclocking and you have instabilities there is something wrong. Need to use something like OCCT to find the problem.

I see you have 14th gen Intel, I would recommend getting a contact plate as Intel’s mechanism sucks ass.

Oh i should have been clearer sorry, sadly the instability in this case will be me, dialing in the optimal settings for renders in 3DSMax, often pushing it too hard, and can not be avoided, usually it will just bluescreen and I hit the reset button, sometimes though i have to force it from the power button, also forcing a cold boot. This has been a normal part of working with Max for me across all machines for a quarter century now, and is totally expected.

This is also why i was concerned about cold boots and asked the question here, and your answer leaves me wondering if its worth upgrading the RAM, since I dont fancy wating to reboot for 10mins.

Thanks for taking the time to explain it, though one would think this wouldnt be an issue anymore. I guess i will get the machine as is and then decide again after testing.