Test System

Testing Rated Speeds

Past memory reviews from me have featured a non-overclocked system, but I know most of us tend to overclock our CPUs. In order to provide you with the same sort of results you will get in the end, and to test memory kits under such overclocked CPU loads, I have overclocked my new memory testing system to match the speeds of Intel's i7-6700K, which defaults to a 4.2 GHz turbo clock. Most of my Z170-based memory reviews do have that "stock" 4.3 GHz turbo speed in use, although the ASUS board I used for those reviews does set the CPU to 4.2 GHz on all cores, which I matched with my retail i7-6950X CPU with relative ease. Intel's Broadwell-E CPUs with high core counts do not clock up very easily; pushing more than 4.3 GHz with this CPU is harder than I'd like, so 4.2 GHz makes for an easy overclock through all ten CPU cores. I also use a 3300 MHz ring speed for all testing, and the two combined overclocks make for a decent performance boost over a stock-clocked i7-6950X CPU while still providing a decent thermal profile.


Having put these sticks in my system, the board recognized that I had changed the memory since my last review, and I entered into the BIOS to enable the default XMP profile. This resulted in a default 100 MHz BCLK being used, as well as the 3200 MHz memory divider. Everything else was automatically adjusted. The system booted up without issue, although it is worth mentioning that I have VCCIO and VCCSA set to "AUTO".