Overclocking

The first test was to see if we could run the TWINX at its rated 400MHz, 2-2-2-6-T1 settings. This is always a good first step just to make sure your ram is working as it should be.

With such aggressive timings, I then moved the DDR speeds upwards, 1MHz at a time until we reached our maximum overclock. As we approached the higher speeds, stability was a concern, and we've had to increase the memory voltage up 2.8v to maintain stability. At 2-2-2-6, we managed a maximum overclock of 221MHz (442MHz DDR). Needless to say, we got some impressive SiSoft memory benchmarks, but the ram would consistently fail the tests. Clocking back down to 217MHz (434MHz DDR) resolved those issues.

The next overclocking test was to determine the maximum overclock with 2-2-2-5 timings. As with the previous tests, we needed to up the voltage again to 2.8v. With such aggressive timings, as expected, our overclocking results wavered a little. 400MHz, 2-2-2-5 was a success, but we only got up to 211MHz (422MHz DDR) before the system started to crash. At 211MHz, the system was rock solid, passing the Memtests86's tests with flying colours.

The last test was to determine the absolute highest overclock. We had varying levels of success, but we needed to move away from our aggressive timings. We adjusted our timings to a more conservative 2.5-2-2-7, increased the voltage to 2.8v.

A 226MHz (452MHz DDR) was the best we were able to manage while still maintaining stability. I did try the same overclock again, and lowered the ram back to CAS2, but while it got to the Windows logon screen, the PC just froze there.

Therefore, in summary, here's our results of our best, and most stable, overclocks:

	2-2-2-5	2-2-2-6	2.5-2-2-7
Corsair TwinX	211MHz (422DDR)	217MHz (434DDR)	226MHz (452DDR)

Test Setup

Epox 8RDA+ nForce2: Athlon XP 2400+ (12x166: 1192MHz) provided by , 2 x 256MB Corsair TwinX Ram, ATi Radeon 9700 Pro, 120GB Western Digital SE 8MB Cache, Windows XP SP1, nForce 2 Unified Driver Package 2.0, ATi Catalyst 3.0

Test software will be:

SiSoft Sandra 2003
PC Mark 2002 Memory
PiFast
Quake 3
3D Mark 2001 SE
UT2003

We'll be presenting benchmarks at both the ram's stock speed (400MHz), as well as at the overclocked speeds, with the timings as shown earlier this page. Tests were done with the FSB and memory speed syncronous @ 166 (333DDR, 2-2-2-6), and asyncronous for 200MHz (400DDR) and up.

SiSoftware Sandra 2003

Although a synthetic benchmark, it's a popular one, freely available if you wish to make comparison benchmarks. We will be testing the memory speeds.

PC Mark 2002 - Memory

This is one synthetic benchmark that we here at VL don't exactly put a lot of emphasis on, but we're aware that many of our readers do use it.

As we should expect, memory performance increases with each overclock. Although the CAS latency had to be bumped up to 2.5, the best performance was at 226MHz (452FSB). Keep in mind that both SiSoft and PC Mark are not real world benchmarks, but they do give a scale in which to measure against.