OCZ 2x1GB DDR3 PC3-12800 Platinum EB Review

Stability Overclocking:

The best but most difficult part of any memory review is the overclocking. There are so many variables to control and manipulate in order to make memory run at the absolute fastest frequency it can. The Asus P5K3-Dlx is an admirable motherboard and with the knowledge of this motherboard we have, maximizing this memory shouldn't be a problem. First we will discuss the methodology for what is, and isn't stable.

Overclocking Methodology:

There are so many potential timing sets we could overclock that months would be chewed up just doing the stability testing. Unfortunately time constraints on reviews don't allow for this so we will have to stick to the three main timing sets that Micron D9GTR seem to run well. After a short period of time, it was evident that we were working with Micron D9GTR based on how it responded to these timing sets and how the memory scaled with voltage.


Memory stability is always something to be debated but the outline below has been found to be 24/7 distributed computing stable in 99% of all setups tested, without having to test each overclock for a week at a time. Distributed computing projects such as Rosetta@Home, Folding@Home, World Community Grid, and more, are the toughest test for stability for a computer. Running 24/7 crunching for one of these great causes is a sure way to find holes in an overclock, unfortunately it takes a considerable amount of time to use them for stability testing so we use the list of programs below to determine stability of an overclock:

• Multiple loops of 3DMark 01 / 06 (30 minutes of looping the full tests each)
• Dual 32M runs of SuperPi Mod 1.5 (ran at the same time)
• 2 hours of dual Prime95 using Orthos Beta on blend mode priority 9
• 2 hours of dual HCI MemTest Pro in Windows using 850MB/instance

The above testing is quite exhaustive in its own right and as just mentioned, will provide us with an overclock that is stable and willing to run a distributed computing program 24/7. In order for a result to show up in the graph below, it had to pass the outlined stability testing without any errors. The voltages listed in the graph are of that which is set in the BIOS but I have found that the P5K3-Dlx tends to over volt the vDIMM by about 0.05v from what is set in the BIOS. It is hard to say if every P5K3-Dlx does this but it definitely required to mention when testing a kit of memory on it. Without any further delays...let's look at the results of the OCZ 2x1GB DDR3 PC3-12800 Platinum EB!

Stability Overclocking:

As we can see, all overclocking was done with the 1T setting in the BIOS as the 2T setting seems to provide in-consistent results. Whether the memory is actually running at 1T or 2T command rate is quite debatable but one thing is for certain. 1T tends to over clock slightly lower than 2T but also provides greater bandwidth so keep that in mind when digesting the results above.

These DDR3 modules are really quite impressive offering a wide range of frequencies and timings thanks to the Micron D9GTR ICs that is believed to power them. Both 6-6-5-x and 7-6-6-x scale remarkably well with voltage but we can't overlook the fact that 8-7-6-x does not seem to scale the same. This is in fact a motherboard chipset limitation with very few Intel P35 motherboards being able to completely stabilize DDR3 over 950MHz. Individual benchmarking is possible much higher but loosening the timings to 8-8-8 or even 9-9-9 does nothing for improving stable overclocking past 950MHz. Increasing vDIMM again, has no effect on stability past this point. Below are just a few of the screenshots displaying the above results:

Click for full size screenshot...