Overclocking and Performance
The Overclock
When we overclock memory kits in our reviews we go for all out frequency, this is primarily done by tweaking the DRAM frequency presets in the BIOS. Once we top out at the highest stable frequency divider we see if any more frequency can be had by increasing the baseclock, or by changing the baseclock (particular relevant for X99). Typically we set timings as the JEDEC profile recommendations for the frequency we are going for, if this does not work we allow auto-timings to be calculated by the motherboard. Normally we will only make small adjustments to the BCLK and timings to keep the system stable, we will also not use more than 1.65 volts for DDR3 and 1.5 volts for DDR4 as this is not recommended for 24/7 operation.
Overclocking was fairly modest with the G.Skill kit. We managed to get from 2400MHz to 2666MHz, we couldn’t get to the next divider which was 2800MHz. Neither could we get up to a frequency higher than 2666MHz by changing the baseclock to 125 or 166MHz – the kit just didn’t want to go any further. 2666MHz is still a decent achievement though and was fairly easy to do: just change the divider and crank the voltage up to 1.35.
Cinebench
CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s CPU performance. Cinebench R15 is a totally free utility and is available for download here. Cinebench is fairly sensitive to changes in memory frequency and timings.
AIDA64
AIDA64 implements a set of 64-bit benchmarks to measure how fast the computer performs various data processing tasks and mathematical calculations. Memory and cache benchmarks are available to analyze system RAM bandwidth and latency. A free version of AIDA64 is available for download here.
SiSoft Sandra
The SiSoft Sandra memory benchmark is based on STREAM. STREAM is a popular memory bandwidth benchmark that has been used on personal computers to super computers. It measures sustained memory bandwidth not burst or peak. Therefore, the results may be lower than those of other benchmarks. Download a free trial version of SiSoft Sandra here.
WPrime
wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton’s method for estimating functions. wPrime is a free utility that is available for download here. WPrime is influenced by memory timings and frequency.
3DMark Fire Strike
3DMark Firestrike is Futuremark’s latest creation for testing the GPU performance of high end gaming PCs using Direct X 11 graphics. You can download a free basic version of 3DMark here. We use only the Physics score as this is most sensitive to memory frequency and timing changes.
Where are the 16GB/32GB DDR3 2133/2400 kits in the Fire Strike benchmark? I call shenanigans :
I’m pretty sure this particular kit uses Micron ICs going by the serial number. All of the G.Skill kits that used Hynix thus far have had digits 5~8 of the serial number be the numbers “3400”. Samsung-based kits have “3500.” This kit has “3300”. Of course that isn’t to say ALL F4-2400C15Q-16GRB use Micron chips. It’s pretty frustrating really that the OC memory vendors don’t keep the IC consistent for each SKU.