Overclocking

My first foray into overclocking PC3 memory did not fair well, it was not the fault of the memory mind you, the chipsets that supported DDR3 at the time were in their infancy. Today, that is not the case, while the Core i5 is a change from the i7 920, the controller built within have already proven able to overclock well. I started by simply enabling XMP within the BIOS, I left all other settings stock (outside of Turbo Boost, EIST turned off), this gave me an automated performance boost:

As you can see from CPUz from above, there is a drastic increase in performance. Not a bad little uptick for simply selecting XMP in BIOS.

Next I manually set the memory timings, VDimm, VCore, FSB, QPI, Multiplier etc etc etc, with this I was able to obtain a sizable increase over that of the X.M.P settings (granted with a lot more effort).

While I was not able to get the stated maximum for the Patriot Viper II Sector 5 memory modules, it is not the fault of the modules themselves, we just hit a barrier with the motherboard / CPU combination not being able to clock any higher.

Final Words

has been delivering quality memory for sometime, they have separated their lines to distinguish between “Value”, “Performance” and “Gamer” focused memory solutions. With their latest offering, the Viper II Sector 5 memory modules, they have once again proven that they are here to stay in the enthusiasts arena. The ability to clock high and maintain relatively tight timings gives the Viper II Sector 5 modules a leg up on the competition.

Could this all be due to the P55 matching that does? That is truly hard to quantify, in either case, they have accomplished pairing two sticks of memory that I can't reach their limitation, in fact, that is the only draw back to the Sector 5 memory modules, finding a proper Motherboard / CPU combination that can clock to the memory's full potential...

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