Overclocking and Optimizing:
In order to run at the memory's rated speed of 1600MHz, you have to prepared for some overclocking. Not all systems will be able to get there, so be sure to check your BIOS and perhaps your confidence, before investing in a memory kit like this. After the successful run at the initial settings of 1066MHz and 7-7-7-20, it was time to see what this memory could do.
The memory was tested in a variety of configurations in order to see a few main things... How it ran at the rated speeds/timings, how tight the timings could be run at various speeds, and how fast it could be run regardless of timings. Over the course of the review, test data was collected from numerous different stops along the way (1066, 1111, 1200, 1280, 1400, 1500, 1560, and 1600 MHz) and in the benchmarking section a few will be presented for comparison.
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While people purchasing this kit probably don't care about low speed statistics, I did confirm that the memory could be run at 6-7-7-20 timings up to 1200MHz. At speeds of up to 1500MHz, the memory could maintain the timings of 7-7-7-20, which is rather tight for such elevated speeds. When exceeding the 1500MHz mark, the timings had to be relaxed to 8-8-8-20, and once I passed 1560MHz I actually had to relax them a bit more. Although the modules are rated for 8-8-8-20 at 1600MHz on paper, the SPD data shown in CPU-Z indicated 8-8-8-46... So I wasn't too disappointed when I was able to get the system rock solid at 1600MHz and timings of 8-8-8-25.
The screenshots below are taken from CPU-Z, this time with the memory running at 1600MHz, 8-8-8-25 timings, and 1.8V. In order to achieve this, the processor had its multiplier dropped from 9 to 8, and the bus frequency was increased from 333MHz to 400MHz. The below left image confirms the memory details, while the below right image confirms the processor information.
I had read a few other reviews and user accounts of this memory in action, and was aware that some people were capable of hitting up to 1800MHz! My findings weren't as impressive, but I would be more inclined to blame other system components, such as the motherboard, for that. The ASUS P5KC served me well to get to 1600MHz, but anything beyond 1640MHz just wasn't stable, and the few benchmarks I executed showed that performance was actually starting to fade as I loosened the timings.
Serious tweakers with something like the ASUS P5E3 should be able to do much better, as this combination of memory and motherboard seems to be the ticket for hitting well higher than 1600MHz.
Another interesting discovery was that no matter what combination of settings I tried, there was just no booting anywhere between 1300 and 1400 MHz. I initially though I had hit the ceiling way too early, but then jumped it up over this range and was back in business. I was interested in running the memory at 1333MHz to match the front side bus frequency, but it just wouldn't happen.
