Test Setup

Motherboard	ASUS Maximus III Formula
CPU	Core i7 860
Graphic card	ATI Radeon HD 4850
Memory	ADATA DDR3 1600X CL 7-9-7-21
HDD	Western Digital 360
PSU	Corsair 1000 Watt
OS	Windows 7, 64 bit

We were thinking a lot about how to test memory in a way that one can come up with a qualitative conclusion rather than a quantitative one. Our goal is to be able to comment on the memory kits quality. Furthermore, standard performance tests with memory do not have any significance at all. This is because almost the only thing you're measuring is the error in measurement.

What we do instead of performance tests are "scaling test". First we start with the standard voltage and increase the frequency until the system becomes unstable. To test the stability we use MaxxMem. Then we increase the voltage by 0.025 Volt and again we increase the memory frequency until the system becomes unstable. This we repeat until we reach 1.85 Volt.

Using this method one can do statements on the modules potential and on the quality of the chips used. Generally you can say the lower the voltage needed for high overclocking results the better the chips.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 4 - Test Setup
Page 2 - Preview	Page 5 - Results
Page 3 - Technical Details	Page 6 - Conclusion

Discuss this article in the forums