CPU Intel Core i5 2500K (3.3GHz)
Motherboard ASUS P8P67
Memory
4GB Kingston HyperX Special Edition 1600MHz 9-9-9-27
4GB G.Skill RipjawsX 1600MHz 7-8-7-24
4GB OCZ Reaper 1600MHz 8-8-8-26
CPU Cooler Alpenfohn Matterhorn
Graphics ZOTAC GTX 460
PSU OCZ Fatal1ty 750W
Motherboard ASUS P8P67
Memory
4GB Kingston HyperX Special Edition 1600MHz 9-9-9-27
4GB G.Skill RipjawsX 1600MHz 7-8-7-24
4GB OCZ Reaper 1600MHz 8-8-8-26
CPU Cooler Alpenfohn Matterhorn
Graphics ZOTAC GTX 460
PSU OCZ Fatal1ty 750W
For the purpose of testing I will be using the Kingston kit and all subsequent Sandy Bridge memory on the ASUS P8P67 motherboard, using the Intel 2500K . Our database is now growing for Sandy Bridge memory reviews, so over time there will be more memory to compare against. But for now, we will be testing versus OCZ Reaper and the recently reviewed G.Skill RipjawsX.
HyperX Special Edition installed on the ASUS P8P67 / testbench
Overclocking
With BCLK being fixed on the Sandy Bridge platform this has now altered the way we can overclock. Overclocking power with Sandy Bridge is concentrated on the CPU rather than memory. We do not have the flexibility we once had by changing the BCLK in order to move the frequencies in small increments, instead we have a certain margin to move in because of the divider that is set. So available we have 1066MHz / 1600MHz / 1866MHz / 2133MHz / 2400MHz. So we have little room to experiment with, but lets see what we can do.
So to begin with I overclocked the kit pushing the memory frequency up to 2111MHz and very loose CAS timings of 10-10-10-28 but as you would imagine, pushing a kit from 1600MHz to 2111MHz is a challenging task to say the least. Unfortunately, but as expected, the kit would not boot.
From here I then dropped the kit back to 1866MHz which it was very comfortable with. After some modifying of the timings I eventually settled with 9-10-9-25 @ 1.65v. Whilst the timings aren't as tight as I would have liked, for a C9 stock kit these ratings are still impressive.
The next objective was to modify the CAS timings at the stock memory frequency of 1600MHz. The idea here is to get the timings as tight as possible and the lowest ratings that I could settle on were 8-9-8-25 @ 1.65v. Quite a significant improvement over the stock ratings there.
So with both the memory frequency overclock in place and the tightened CAS timings at stock memory frequency achieved I then began benchmarking each variable. The results are on the proceeding pages. To summarise here are the settings we will be testing on the HyperX Special Edition:
Stock: 1600MHz 9-9-9-27 @ 1.65v
Tight: 1600MHz 8-9-8-25 @ 1.65v
OC: 1866MHz 9-10-9-25 @ 1.65v
