Page 10 - Overclocking and Conclusion
Ever since Intel's second generation Core processors hit the market, it really made a reviewer's job a lot easier. For the lazy bunch of us, overclocking memory used to involve fine tuning of the front side bus or base clock of the processor to precisely measure the maximum attainable RAM speed. Since Sandy Bridge's base clock is practically locked down, and for practical purposes, capped voltage at 1.65V, the only practical way of testing this is to see if the tested modules can notch up an entire step. Although I have read articles written by professional reviewers being able to send the G.SKILL Ripjaws-X F3-14900CL9D-8GBXL to blistering DDR3-2133 speeds with minor adjustments to the latencies, I was not able to get there with my particular set even with a voltage bump from stock 1.5V to 1.65V. This is entirely understandable, because if the Ripjaws-X DDR3-1866 are indeed capable of operating at DDR3-2133, G.SKILL could have easily sold it as the F3-17000CL9D-8GBXLD kit instead -- they have exactly the same hardware under the hood as discussed on Page 3 of this review. That said, I was able to tighten up the latencies slightly from 9-10-9-27 to 9-10-9-24. It is probably not going to make any empirical difference in real life usage (Or even benchmarking, for the matter) -- so personally, I would just leave it at stock 9-10-9-28 1.5V.
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So, back to the facts. The fact is, while the G.SKILL Ripjaws-X F3-14900CL9D-8GBXL 2x4GB DDR3 dual channel set did not deliver any surprises when it comes to overclocking potential, it delivered very consistent performance across the board for a DDR3-1866 kit on the Sandy Bridge platform. But where this Ripjaws-X kit really shines is not necessarily reflected by the numbers we post in this review. Realistically, I think we should look at it this way: If you buy DDR3-1866 RAM, it is hard to expect it to reach DDR3-2133 speeds; and neither do we expect one DDR3-1866 kit to benchmark better than any other DDR3-1866 kit. But what I really like about the G.SKILL Ripjaws-X PC3-14900 2x4GB RAM is the fact that it holds true to what it promises, and that is delivering everything it says on paper -- a speedy clock speed of 1866MHz, with moderately good 9-10-9-28 latencies -- at only 1.5V. While most of the competition requires 1.65V for similar specifications, G.SKILL does away with less power consumption, and that is a definite plus. Combined with the company's sharp, medium profile Ripjaws-X heatspreaders that can fit under a number of heatsinks, renowned quality, lifetime warranty, excellent availability online or offline, and a price that undercuts the competition, I think we have yet another winner in our hands. Sometimes, impressive facts can really make impressive products.
G.SKILL provided this product to APH Networks for the purpose of evaluation.
APH:Renewal Award
Since April 30, 2007, Number Ratings have been dropped for all CPUs, motherboards, RAM, SSD/HDDs, and graphics cards. This is to ensure the most appropriate ratings are reflected without the inherent limits of using numbers. Everything else will continue using the Number Rating System.
More information in our Review Focus.
If you are wondering why G.SKILL is suddenly the most popular RAM maker among computer enthusiasts, the Ripjaws-X F3-14900CL9D-8GBXL 2x4GB is yet another product of a very simple success formula: Performance and quality at a price that undercuts the competition.
Do you have any comments or questions about the G.SKILL Ripjaws-X F3-14900CL9D-8GBXL 2x4GB RAM? Drop by our Forums. Registration is free, and it only takes a minute!
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Installation, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 CPU
4. Benchmark: AIDA64 FPU
5. Benchmark: AIDA64 Memory
6. Benchmark: PCMark 7
7. Benchmark: 3DMark 11
8. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 7.0
9. Benchmark: SuperPI 1M, Cinebench R11.5
10. Overclocking and Conclusion
