I stumbled upon this article in the printed Australian PCPowerPlay magazine and was surprised about the quality content. Memory overclocking is not a simple activity for people who are not really into overclocking as it requires more technical knowledge than for instance overclocking the CPU core ratios. For example, it is important to know what role the IMC (integrated memory controller) plays in the memory overclocking story. But Matt Wilson pulled off a great article, covering everything from the basics of choosing the right memory kit (GSKill PerfectStorm - if anyone disgrees?) over the importance of the right CPU to the details of the memory timings.

Mind you, although the article titles the word Expert, it is definitely written for the novice overclocker. That being said, I believe this is an important article for any overclocker, whether seasoned or just arriving at the scene, to read through. If not to learn from, at least to acknowledge the quality. Well done!

Link to the article: http://www.pcpowerplay.com.au/2013/04/remember-me-the-experts-guide-to-ram-overclocking/.

Overclocking RAM is something that hasn’t really evolved too much over the years. Sure, it’s changed slightly with the removal of the Front Side Bus on the Intel platform, but the principal has always remained the same. Essentially, all that needs to be done in order to run your RAM at a higher frequency these days is enable XMP (if you’re using a compatible Intel kit and board), or change the bus:RAM ratio accordingly. This should be fairly self-evident from within your BIOS, and as you’re here in The Bunker we’re going to assume a sound understanding on your behalf.

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The list of benchmarks we can run isn’t all that long when it comes to RAM overclocking. MaxxMem is officially supported by HWBot, though not many overclockers tend to use it, which leaves SuperPi and PiFast as some of our favorites, despite CPU speeds having a heavier influence on results.

Other recommended benchmarks are AIDA64 (Memory Suite) and Sandra 2012. However, given their slightly more complex software, they are more prone to crashes at high clocks when compared to Pi calculations.

Arguably, the most popular form of competing with memory overclocking would be for frequency records. This is fairly self-explanatory, and currently dominated by the AMD Fusion series. For these records the system does not actually have to be benchmark stable; only stable enough to POST, load Windows and capture a verified screenshot using CPU-Z. Cache timings are not important either, so generally expect to see numbers around CL15 or so for most frequency records.