Pushing For Speed

With testing out of the way, I endeavored to see if these sticks have any headroom. For Intel, I kept the same procedure I have been using, leaving all settings at their XMP defaults and then increasing the frequency until the system loses stability.

While my two kits had no stability issues at their XMP speeds, I opted to do my overclocking in a two stick configuration. This is a closer comparison to the other kits I test.


I was able to get 3733 MHz out of this kit with all other XMP settings at their default. Like many recent kits, pushing past that proved difficult. Raising voltages did not yield better results (highest tested: DRAM: 1.5 V, VCCSA: 1.35 V, and VCCIO: 1.3 V).


For AMD overclocking, I wanted to dig a little deeper. First, I followed the same procedure as with Intel to find the maximum-possible frequency with XMP timings. Next, I set the frequency to 3600 MHz and used DRAM Calculator for Ryzen to optimize the timings. If the "Fast" preset was not viable, start with the "safe" settings and try to at least get the primary timings as close to the "Fast" preset as possible. I then benched each setting with AIDA64 to showcase what kind of benefits you can expect from each. I also included the default (non-XMP) settings as a base reference point.


I was able to squeeze 3800 MHz out of the Crucial Ballistix Gaming Memory on my MEG X570 ACE with the XMP default timings. For timings, the "Fast" preset booted perfectly at 3600 MHz! Considering this is a 400 MHz overclock, and some significant timing changes, that's a very impressive result!


It should be no surprise that boosting clock speed and tightening timings results in some noticeable gains.