Testing Methodology

Like the other memory reviews ARP has done in the past, we will only concentrate on testing the overclockability of the memory, since there are no reliable and consistent memory benchmarks available.

The timings we tested at were 2-2-2-5, 2.5-3-3-7 and 3-4-4-8. For those who are not familiar with memory timings, the first number refers to the CAS Latency, the second number to the RAS-to-CAS Delay (tRCD), the third to the Row Precharge Delay (tRP), and the final number refers to the Row Active Delay (tRAS). For more information on these timings, please consult our BIOS Optimization Guide.

We tested the memory modules at two different voltages for Intel platform, 2.7V and 2.8V. While only 2.7V is used for AMD platform because we faced some stability issue at 2.9V, probably caused by the weak Icute PSU.

For stability at overclocked speeds, we tested the RAM modules with Prime95's Torture Test 3. The memory modules had to perform for at least 1 hour of stress tests at each setting before the settings were considered stable. Testing was run with a CPU multiplier of 8x, to prevent the CPU from acting as a bottleneck.

There were four possible outcomes to our tests :-

• Stable - where the module passed our tests without a hitch
• Not Stable - where the module could boot into Windows, but was unable to successfully complete the Prime95 test
• Cannot Boot - where the system could not boot successfully into Windows
• Cannot POST - where the system did complete the POST

Test Bed