DDR4 Memory Overclocking Report and Beginner's Guide

Maximum Overclocks and Temperature Testing

Crucial Maximum Overclocks

By increasing the timings to 18-18-18, I was able to get this kit to 2800MHz; however, I also tried lower timings below.

These are the respective maximum frequencies for 16-16-16 and 17-17-17 with the Crucial Kit. There isn't much difference between them. I used VCCSA of +0.35v for the Crucial kit, as well as a DDR voltage of 1.4v.

ADATA Maximum Overclock

At 16-18-18, I was able to get the ADATA kit to the same 3200MHz the G.Skill kit is rated for. I used +0.5v VCCSA, and 1.4v on the DDR voltage.

G.Skill Maximum Overclock

Using G.Skill's XMP timings of 16-16-16-39 CR2, I was able to pull off 3302MHz at 1.4v! I also decided to tighten the timings and see how high I could get, so I used 13-14-15 CR1. Tightening the timings required a voltage bump to 1.5v. VCCSA was at +0.5v for both runs.

Temperature Testing

I decided to use my new thermal camera to find the maximum temperatures of modules during heavy load. Lowest and highest temperatures of the Crucial kit are depicted here:

I have the camera set to find the lowest and highest temperature points in the frame. Here is the G.Skill kit:

The results are as follows:

It is interesting to note that the Crucial was warmer; however, I expected this result, as the Crucial has memory on both sides of the DIMM. Overall, the temperatures are pretty low, so it looks like DDR4's power saving features are working. I never saw the VPP VRM (which is right near the top of the memory DIMMs) get hotter than the memory ICs.