Overclocking and Stability Testing
Since we're using a 200FSB (800MHz) ABIT IC7-MAX3 motherboard, the first thing I wanted to try was what are the tightest timings I could run the HyperX at at 200FSB. After a bit of tweaking, it seems that 2-3-3-6 is about as low as I can go.
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200FSB (400MHz) @ SPD
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200FSB (400MHz) @ Tweaked
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With that out of the way, I did a double check if the ram can indeed handle the 250FSB at 3-4-4-8. The HyperX performed within spec, and amazingly (given our previous results with other PC4000 modules) it did so at 2.6v.
Next thing we did was to adjust the timings and to see what the TWINX would allow us to tweak to. At 250FSB, the best we managed was…
250FSB (500MHz) @ Tweaked
The ram was completely stable, and passed MemTest without any problems at 2.5-4-3-7. Memory voltage did need a boost to 2.7 though. Keeping the same timings, we pushed the FSB a little more before topping off at 254FSB. This was as high as we could go, even when we pushed the voltage up to 2.9v.
We relaxed the timings back to the HyperX default of 3-4-4-8, and went forward with the FSB once again, adjusting the voltages as required until we settled on our final overclock.
270FSB Max OC
At 1/1 CPU and memory, we settled on a final OC of 270FSB. We did manage 275FSB, but even at 3.0v, the system was not stable. Actually, the system was fairly stable at 271FSB at 3.0v, but occasionally we locked up. 270FSB was rock solid, and we were able to drop our voltage back to a safer 2.8v. Keep in mind that this all voids any warranty, but nothing like living on the edge, eh? For the record, staying at 2.6v, the max OC was 256FSB.
Test Setup
ABIT IC7-MAX3: Pentium 4 2.4C, 2 x 512MB Kingston HyperX PC4000, ATI AIW Radeon 9800 Pro, 120GB Seagate, Windows XP SP1, ATI Catalyst 3.6.
Benchmarks will be presented at 200FSB, 250FSB and maximum OC. Keep in mind that the numbers at maximum OC will be skewed since we're running 1:1 and the CPU's speeds will be different when showing each memory's OC speed. There isn't anything I can do with this since it's impossible to set the memory speeds independently with the CPU FSB unless we go with a lower memory divider.
Test Software for both platforms will be:
AVI-to-MPG Encoding
Unreal Tournament 2003
Game Accelerator will be configured at Street Racer for 200FSB, and Auto for the rest. Competing sticks will be OCZ's 1GB PC4000 EL Gold, and the Corsair TWINX1024-4000 Pro Series. At 200FSB, all the competing ram kits will be running at 2-3-3-5, and the HyperX at 2-3-3-6. At 250FSB, the ProSeries will be running at 2.5-3-3-6, whereas the other two kits will be at 2.5-4-3-6, since neither could do 2.5-3-3-6. All the ram modules will be running at 3-4-4-8 at their maximum overclocks.
