Overclocking
Disclaimer: Overclocking is never guaranteed, so the results may vary depending on certain conditions and various hardware configurations. I am not recommending overclocking if you do not know what you are doing. High voltages may damage hardware, and the warranty will not cover it.
Since Crucial is a Micron brand, the Pro OC was expected to use Micron IC. Under the heatsinks, besides Micron D-die IC, we will find Richtek PMIC. It’s the most popular PMIC, used in most high-frequency gaming and overclocking memory modules. Most motherboards are well-prepared for this PMIC and let us use higher than specified voltages.
The tested memory kit had no problems working at more than 1.5V VDD/VDDQ. However, it wasn’t scaling well past DDR5-7000, so I decided to lower the voltage and stabilize it at DDR5-7000 CL38.
The memory kit could reach DDR5-7000 CL38-45-45 at 1.40V VDD/VDDQ. It’s a respectable result and already a significant improvement over the XMP/EXPO profile. The DDR5-7200 was benchable, but I couldn’t stabilize it at reasonable timings or voltages. The memory kit could post even at DDR5-7600 but couldn’t enter Windows. It suggests that if we are lucky and have a top memory controller and motherboard, then there is a chance to set an even higher frequency than we reached.
Regardless of voltages, it wasn’t possible to set CL32 at 6000MT/s+.The only well-performing alternative is DDR5-6400 CL34-38-38 1.40V. Results at this profile were slightly worse than at DDR5-7000, but they should be easier to set on lower-series motherboards.
The same as in the previously reviewed Crucial memory kit, if we set tREFI at 65k or higher, we can count on about 5-8GB/s higher bandwidth (depending on the frequency) and 5-12ns lower latency. However, it’s much harder to stabilize RAM at high tREFI, so I left it at auto for comparison purposes.
The Crucial Pro OC RAM isn’t the fastest and isn’t overclocking the best. It’s still a well-overclocking and well-performing option, which will give a lot of fun to overclockers and enthusiasts. Since even the XMP/EXPO profiles are fast, then gamers don’t have to waste time on manual tuning as they won’t gain much more.
