Kingston HyperX 2GB PC3-14400 Memory Kit with Intel XMP

Overclocking

For overclocking I used the same ASUS P5E3 Deluxe (X38 chipset) motherboard that was used for benchmarking and pushed to see how far we could take the memory kit on this platform.

When it came to overclocking this kit of memory I was reminded by the fact that this specific Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 tops out at roughly 465MHz. I left the voltage at 1.9V and rebooted the system at 465MHz and the memory was able to handle the overclock just fine. This isn’t a big deal though as it is only 60MHz higher than default! Not much else to show as we are processor bound.

Processor bound? What a lame excuse for not pushing the memory kit to the bleeding edge! Just for fun I switched processors to an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor and was able to push up the Front Side Bus (FSB) with ease. This new dual-core processor took the memory kit all the way to 2060MHz thanks to the higher 515MHz FSB that the processor was able to run at. This is a 260MHz overclock and the timings remained the same, which is pretty impressive. Not too many motherboards or processors are able to run 500MHz FSB and beyond, so this HyperX kit will handle the needs of nearly any overclocker.

To finish off the overclocking section I wanted to see just how tight I could get the timings to. This 8-8-8-24 based memory kit could do 7-7-7-22 timings with no problems at all. If you want to increase the VDIMM up to 2.1-2.2V the kit can run 7-6-6-18 timings with full stability at 1800MHz with a 1T command rate. No matter what voltage I threw at it I was unable to get it to boot at 6-6-6-18.

To sum up overclocking we were able to reach 2060MHz with the stock timings and for those that want to tighten timings we were able to reach super tight CL7 timings with ease.