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We decided to use the fantastic, class leading Asus Rampage IV Extreme motherboard for our review today, overclocking the Intel Core i7 3960X EE processor to 4.4ghz. G.Skill have a public document available to detail the procedure for setting up the G.Skill RipjawsZ 2,400mhz memory.
Selecting the XMP profile and rebooting was a success with no stability problems occurring.
Overclocking the memory past 2,400mhz wasn't straightforward, requiring a little work with the timings and voltages to get complete stability. In the end however we managed to get the system stable at 2,500mhz, with a little voltage boost to 1.67.
There is clearly some additional headroom with this memory, if you are willing to spend the time and effort in the bios (and have the ability to do so).
We managed to get the timings tighter via both DRAM CAS latency and DRAM RAS PRE Time, achieving a final result of 10-12-10-30 (both at 2,400mhz and 2,500mhz).
Validation here.
Above, the memory running at 2400mhz, with 10-12-10-30 timings. Achieving these settings doesn't require much effort, and this is how we will test today. 2,500mhz requires a little more voltage, outside Intel's recommended specifications, so we won't test at that. That said, if you are willing to take a small risk then higher speeds are possible.
Processor: Intel i7 3960X EE @ 4.4ghz
Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme
Cooler: Antec H20 920
Memory: G.Skill 16GB 2400mhz X79
Graphics Card: Nvidia GTX590 QUAD SLI. – x16/x16
Power Supply: Enermax Platimax 1200W
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li PC-A77FR Aluminium Red Full Tower Case
Monitors: Dell U3011, 3x Ilyama ProLite E2472HDD
Boot Drive: Patriot WildFire 120GB
Secondary Drive: 1TB Samsung
Comparison memory:
8GB Corsair Dominator GT 2400mhz
16GB GSkill Ripjaws Z 2133mhz
32GB Corsair Vengeance 1600mhz
Software:
SiSoft Sandra
PcMark 7
3D Studio Max 2011
MaxxMem 2
