20x Core i7 3770K IMC overclocking test on air

[riska]

I have had 2 malay that can both do more than 2900mhz mem speed on water stable and more on cold

The one i have now can do 2850mhz+ on the tridentx 2666 kit at stock voltage

[Massman]

Originally Posted by Sam OCX

I had enough of Intel's ES Ivies to claim the opposite - their are not superior to retails.

Yup, I can agree with that as well. No way Intel is shipping "pre-binned" CPUs.

In fact, from the 50 chips we tested at the SF3D OC Gathering 10 (retail) came straight from Intel. They were the most bunnyextraction ones we had! So either Intel's not doing any screening whatsoever or they are doing it completely wrong

[borandi]

Originally Posted by M.Beier

By any chance can you try it in a MV G/E/F ?

Not got those in, sorry

Originally Posted by Leeghoofd

loosen tRRD, tRRSR and tWWSR, it's too tight on Gigabyte. Boards should be able to do the same as the ASUS ones...

That's for Gigabyte to decide on how they recognise their kits. Shouldn't have to go around fiddling with settings 99.99% of people don't understand. Set the strap and go - if the board works then great, if not then too bad, really. I do sense the folly of saying that on an OC forum, but as I review from the perspective of the 'normal enthusiast' user, we're lucky XMP is even set sometimes, let alone XMP then strap as required.

Let's be honest though, GSkill isn't a preferred vendor for Gigabyte. Corsair and Kingston get top priorities, then it filters down. Don't get me wrong, they still work with each other, but in general the later the BIOS the better it seems to work with my kits. In my experience, anyhow - YMMV

[sin0822]

nice testing massman.

[I.M.O.G.]

Originally Posted by borandi

That's for Gigabyte to decide on how they recognise their kits. Shouldn't have to go around fiddling with settings 99.99% of people don't understand. Set the strap and go - if the board works then great, if not then too bad, really. I do sense the folly of saying that on an OC forum, but as I review from the perspective of the 'normal enthusiast' user, we're lucky XMP is even set sometimes, let alone XMP then strap as required.

Let's be honest though, GSkill isn't a preferred vendor for Gigabyte. Corsair and Kingston get top priorities, then it filters down. Don't get me wrong, they still work with each other, but in general the later the BIOS the better it seems to work with my kits. In my experience, anyhow - YMMV

The rule of benchmarks prevails... In motherboard reviews where benchmarks are heavily utilized by readers, it gives Gigabyte a perceived "efficiency" advantage because they tighten some things up more than other boards. In most reviews, the reviewer and reader pays no attention to the resulting sub-timings - they assume RAM timings are detected by SPD and set identically. So in a motherboard review where a board is put head to head against a different board, the variance between products is typically 1-3% with all other factors identical (within margin of error)... But a little tweaking like this can give a perceived edge to one board in the benchmark results.

Gigabyte isn't the first to do it. With enough memory module testing while in engineering/bios development, most popular memory will just work and no one pays any mind... The only reason anyone is talking about manually changing these settings on Gigabyte is because some DIMMs weren't tested enough so the auto-settings don't work on some DIMMs at top-end frequencies, which lead to some people figuring out what was up.

Finally, your point doesn't entirely make sense to me. The sticks do just work without fiddling with settings that 99.99% of people don't understand. It's only when pushing aggressive memory frequencies that are pointless for anything other than benchmarking itself that fiddling is required - and fiddling is exactly what we're benchmarking for.

[Massman]

Originally Posted by borandi

That's for Gigabyte to decide on how they recognise their kits. Shouldn't have to go around fiddling with settings 99.99% of people don't understand. Set the strap and go - if the board works then great, if not then too bad, really. I do sense the folly of saying that on an OC forum, but as I review from the perspective of the 'normal enthusiast' user, we're lucky XMP is even set sometimes, let alone XMP then strap as required.

Wouldn't it be your task, as reviewer, to point out to this 'normal enthusiast user' that it's not a problem to run at a certain memory frequency as long as they change this one subtiming? Isn't it the task of a reviewer to make sure the reader is informed about this?

I agree that boards should work out-of-the box, with 'work' defined both in terms of overclocking capability ("Can it reach this frequency?") as well as performance ("Is it performing well?"). It's easy to reach a high frequency if you cripple the subtimings by default, but does that make the board an outstanding memory overclocker for the normal enthusiast user?

Imho, a reviewer should at least point out there is a workaround for a certain issue. If not, the reader is not informed correctly.

[dumo]

Good imc made (oc) life a bit easier. Lol

[borandi]

Originally Posted by Massman

Wouldn't it be your task, as reviewer, to point out to this 'normal enthusiast user' that it's not a problem to run at a certain memory frequency as long as they change this one subtiming? Isn't it the task of a reviewer to make sure the reader is informed about this?

If I set the strap and it works, it works. If I have to go fishing for several hours to find if the next strap up works, where does it end? Do I up another strap, then see if that works too if I loosen a bit here, a bit there? Before you know it, you end up with 70hours of 'work' time gone and you don't get a penny extra if you work on a freelance basis. Prevail as an enthusiast vs. work to feed yourself is always a tough battle.

I agree that boards should work out-of-the box, with 'work' defined both in terms of overclocking capability ("Can it reach this frequency?") as well as performance ("Is it performing well?"). It's easy to reach a high frequency if you cripple the subtimings by default, but does that make the board an outstanding memory overclocker for the normal enthusiast user?

'Normal enthusiast' is a very obscure term in itself. Readership for me is mostly 'I know how to build a PC, perhaps update a BIOS', but the buck stops there for the majority of people. Sure, the ones that comment on the review are more often than not the more knowledgeable, but as always they could represent the vast minority of the readership.

Imho, a reviewer should at least point out there is a workaround for a certain issue. If not, the reader is not informed correctly.

If there is a simple fix that is advertised by the company (or at least distributed), then yes it gets included. I wholeheartedly agree that manufacturers have to be aggressive, and with the popular kits they really do fine tune it in with detail rather than SPD. They are more than welcome to do that. Reality is that the vast majority of regular users do not update the BIOS either, to which I sometimes come to blows with manufacturers when it comes to updating BIOSes.

(For ROG/OC/gaming boards then yes, if it arrived with pre-release BIOS, then I update to the latest. If a retail sample arrives, I'll leave the BIOS as is and work with that, based on the readership of the website.)

But truth be told, each motherboard manufacturer has preferred memory vendors. Corsair and Kingston work with everyone because they have the majority of channel sales. GSkill is getting there in the enthusiast segment, but it is up to the motherboard manufacturers to prioritise who gets research time.

[K404]

IMO a company shouldn't have any negative comments for tuning their BIOS tight. There's a balance between performance tuning and compatability tuning..... the company decides which is more important.

[Sam OCX]

Originally Posted by K404

IMO a company shouldn't have any negative comments for tuning their BIOS tight. There's a balance between performance tuning and compatability tuning..... the company decides which is more important.

So you can't criticise a memory maker for flashing DDR3-2400 rated memory with SPD/XMP that set subs so tight that they can't possibly work? (the case with recent Kingston mems)