As one who is generally
opposed to such memory
kit reviews with no
overclocking, default (X.M.P)
performance holds little to
no interest. This set was the
exception as the shipping
settings are indeed worthy of
reporting results on. There
were two other sets on hand
spec’d higher using the same
ICs that were simply not
capable of passing memory
training at any voltage short
of 1.6V at C14 3200. Again
these are memory kits with
the same ICs. If anything,
that should be a clear
indication of just how special
this memory is despite the
price suggesting otherwise.
Right now it is unlikely
that there is a matching
DDR4 set which you can buy
for around this price and
perhaps twice as much from
any other vendor, barring
the previously mentioned
3333MHz SKU.
If you’re an amateur and
aren’t well versed with
memory tuning, you’ll
be pleased to know that,
such are the capabilities
of this memory that it will
operate at virtually any
overclocked frequency
without need for you to
manually tune the settings.
What that means is; if you
load the XMP profile, set
3333, 3400, 3466, and
3600MHz. The memory
POSTs just fine, passes all
memory tests and is
generally stable without
needing any intervention
from you. Of course the
memory timings are
automatically adjusted by the
motherboard to enable this,
however, the operating
voltage was never changed
for any of it. So
at the very least you have
DDR4 3600MHz capable
DIMMS even though you’ve
purchased 3200.
For the proficient
overclockers though, there’s
no doubt that this memory as
with other quality memory
using the same ICs is capable
of those 4GHz frequencies
with C12 timings, heck maybe
even C11. Sure enough that is
on the extreme end with
exotic cooling (at the very
least for the CPU) and copious
amounts of voltage, but it
is well within the realm of
possibility for the advanced
overclockers out there. We
may not have tested this, but
given the constant scaling
with ever more voltage,
there’s no reason to believe
that this shouldn’t be the case
when lesser kits behave in
this manner as well.
Issue 39 | 2016 The OverClocker 21