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Best viewed @ 1024 x 768 and higher
Installation and Testing: The ASUS P5K3 Deluxe has been an excellent motherboard for testing these past few weeks. Due to it's very adjustable BIOS, it was once again chosen in part to its stability and performance. Many overclocking sessions have had a few settings that just didn't work and didn't require having to ever clear the CMOS. If the system failed to post, a hard reset would bring the system back to the default BOOT screen letting you know the settings failed to load and that F1 would take you to the BIOS to change the settings. The Patriot PC3-15000 installed and booted up without issue.
Oddly, my efforts to get CPUZ to
report the correct timings and module SPD just hasn't been successful. CPUZ works for the most part, but still
insists on reporting the oddest of information under the Memory tab. This is the
only screen shot of the utility in action that will be used for the most part
due to the issue which I'm very sure will be fixed soon. Benchmarks using
3DMark05, SANDRA Memory Bandwidth, Mathematical, and Multi-Media as well as
Fear, Battlefield 2142, and Quake 4 were performed throughout the spectrum of
testing. The reason XP PRO is being used is due to unforgiving nature of Vista
when trying to overclock the system. As you can see, the Patriot
PC3-15000 2GB memory was capable of breaking our previous memory bandwidth
record that OCZ's PC3 1600MHz kit achieved. This is entirely expected
since that particular kit topped out close to 1800MHz. A score of just about 11,500
MB/s is pretty sweet and means you can expect some vast improvements in
performance all over the spectrum. The CPU and the memory teamed up under these
frequencies vastly improves stock benchmarks.
As previously mentioned, the memory modules can and do operate at lower frequencies with more aggressive, lower timings. To help simplify the confusion, I checked to see at what frequency ranges most anyone can expect assuming they have a comparable system. Starting at 1066MHz, the PC3-15000 operated with 6-6-6 timings up to 1440MHz. From here, the memory required 7-7-7 timings which held true up to 1725MHz at which point they had to be raised to 8-8-8 up to the 1880MHz mark. I'm sorry to say, at that point, the test boards had pretty much reached their maximum tweakable limits. The memory kit still had some more to offer, but even these current motherboards don't seem quite ready for this kind of speed.
<< A Closer Look | More Testing & Conclusion >>
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