Overclocking
The first thing I tested was whether the ram could actually run at the ~1950MHz 11-11-11 it said it could. To keep the CPU speed out of the benchmark results I run it right at the same 4GHz, this resulted in the following ram speed:
Much to my delight the ram really is capable of running this speed on 1.5v, this is refreshing. I added some voltage to see if it would run higher as well. It capped out at ~1030MHz at 12-12-12 timings. Bumping the timings to 12-14-14 allowed me to boot at 1100MHz, but it was nowhere near stable. The best performance overclocked was found at the 983-11-11-11 in the shot above. I also tried tightening the timings at 800MHz to no avail, even with raised voltage. Crucial has binned this kit pretty closely and what you see in the SPD table looks like what you get.
Maxxmem
We get a decent increase in results here in Maxxmem, enough to be worthwhile running the ram at this speed. Nothing that will burn the barn down, but this is budget ram after all!
SuperPi 32m
13 seconds cut off the 32m time, that’s solid. It’s also a nice indication of the stability at this speed.
WPrime 32M and 1024M
WPrime was not overly impressed by the overclocking, it’s a little bit faster but not much. This is about what I expected, really.
All told I’m pleased that the SPD tables are correct, but disappointed in the amount of actual overclocking headroom. If you only look at the 1600-9-9-9 rating, there’s a fair bit of headroom (though not nearly as high as I’ve seen from some 1600 sticks!). If you look at the SPD table 977-11-11-11 isn’t officially overclocking anymore, the ram is rated for it. Why it isn’t sold at that speed I don’t know.
