- Jul 11, 2002
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I recently grabbed 2 kits of Samsung's low-profile, low-voltage ram. There's been a lot written about how well these kits overclock on their own, but I wanted to see how far I could push them (stably) on my sig rig. Results below. But first, a special thanks to Termie for posting the recent Newegg deal and encouraging me to play around with these things.
So, I played with LOTS of settings to find a sweet spot, but I won't bore you with all the gorey details. Instead, I'll show you the most stable 2133 OC as well as the 1866 OC that I've settled on for every day use (about the same performance as the 2133 OC). Keep in mind that these sticks are rated at 1600/11-11-11-28-2T/1.35v. Also keep in mind that I'm not willing to even try anything more than 1.5v on my rig.
2133/9-10-10-25-2T/1.5v
(I hit PrtSc before everything scaled back to idle, as you can see in the RealTemp window. See the pic below for idle temps/voltages)
I liked this OC, but it was giving me wonky results in Prime95...it would run for an hour stably, and then I'd get a rounding error on one core while the other 3 workers churned away. And it wasn't the same core every time. I tried loosening it up to 9-10-10-28, but same strange results. In my experience, a rounding error will occur soon after starting P95, or it won't happen at all, so this was a new experience for me. I probably could have pushed the DRAM voltage or VCCIO very slightly and gotten away with this OC, but as I said above, not gonna happen on this rig. Anyway, I gave up on the 2133 OC and decided to scale down to 1866, while tightening everything else, and ended up here:
1866/9-9-9-24-1T/1.5v
As you can see, performance is nearly identical to the 2133 OC, but without the wonky P95 rounding errors, so I think I'm settling here for an everyday OC.
Conclusions
This RAM is amazing, even when combining kits. I was stable with one kit at 2133/9-10-10-25-1T/1.5v, and I really didn't have to sacrifice much to get two kits stably OC'ed. I had some issues booting to Win7 at some of my higher tests, but it never failed to POST, with one kit or two, even at some stupid settings like 2133/8-8-8-24/1T for BOTH kits (no Win7 there, unfortunately). I'll be buying more as soon as it goes on sale again, if not sooner (it's only $7 cheaper when it's one sale)! Highly recommended for overclocking, even when combining kits.
Some more pics (taken with Samsung GSIII, so forgive the graininess):
Pre-surgery:
Old RAM:
Old RAM out:
New RAM
New RAM in (it barely sticks out of the slots, and I didn't have to remove either fan on my 212+ to get all 4 sticks in!):
So, I played with LOTS of settings to find a sweet spot, but I won't bore you with all the gorey details. Instead, I'll show you the most stable 2133 OC as well as the 1866 OC that I've settled on for every day use (about the same performance as the 2133 OC). Keep in mind that these sticks are rated at 1600/11-11-11-28-2T/1.35v. Also keep in mind that I'm not willing to even try anything more than 1.5v on my rig.
2133/9-10-10-25-2T/1.5v
(I hit PrtSc before everything scaled back to idle, as you can see in the RealTemp window. See the pic below for idle temps/voltages)
I liked this OC, but it was giving me wonky results in Prime95...it would run for an hour stably, and then I'd get a rounding error on one core while the other 3 workers churned away. And it wasn't the same core every time. I tried loosening it up to 9-10-10-28, but same strange results. In my experience, a rounding error will occur soon after starting P95, or it won't happen at all, so this was a new experience for me. I probably could have pushed the DRAM voltage or VCCIO very slightly and gotten away with this OC, but as I said above, not gonna happen on this rig. Anyway, I gave up on the 2133 OC and decided to scale down to 1866, while tightening everything else, and ended up here:
1866/9-9-9-24-1T/1.5v
As you can see, performance is nearly identical to the 2133 OC, but without the wonky P95 rounding errors, so I think I'm settling here for an everyday OC.
Conclusions
This RAM is amazing, even when combining kits. I was stable with one kit at 2133/9-10-10-25-1T/1.5v, and I really didn't have to sacrifice much to get two kits stably OC'ed. I had some issues booting to Win7 at some of my higher tests, but it never failed to POST, with one kit or two, even at some stupid settings like 2133/8-8-8-24/1T for BOTH kits (no Win7 there, unfortunately). I'll be buying more as soon as it goes on sale again, if not sooner (it's only $7 cheaper when it's one sale)! Highly recommended for overclocking, even when combining kits.
Some more pics (taken with Samsung GSIII, so forgive the graininess):
Pre-surgery:
Old RAM:
Old RAM out:
New RAM
New RAM in (it barely sticks out of the slots, and I didn't have to remove either fan on my 212+ to get all 4 sticks in!):