Installation
Installing any type of memory is pretty easy. Just find the open memory slots in your system and insert the memory and lock it into place. This is quad channel memory so make sure you have it in the right slots. Of course that all depends on the motherboard you are using.
Our DDR4 test bed is of course our brand new Intel X99 system which is made up of the following components.
Processor: Intel Core i7-5960X
Video Card: MSI GTX 770 Gaming
Motherboard: EVGA X99 Micro
Memory: 32 GB Crucial DDR4 2133 MHz
Storage: 120GB Kingston HyperX 3K
Power: Corsair AX860i
Cooling: Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme
Case: HighSpeed PC Top Deck Tech Station
Normally with most memory we would go into the BIOS and enable the XMP profile, but these modules do not have an XMP profile so everything is set to auto. Opening up CPU-Z we can see all of the information on the memory.
The memory runs at 2133 MHz with timings of 15-15-15-36 at 1.2V.
Overclocking
Overclocking on the Intel X99 platform is pretty easy. The easiest way to overclock would be up simply change the frequency divider in the BIOS. To achieve the best overclock we try to stay with the timings that the JEDEC profile recommends, but we will loosen or tighten timings to get the best overclock possible. No adjustments to the BCLK will be made.
This kit has a normal speed of 2133 MHz so the next step up would be 2200 MHz. The kit made the jump with no problem at all. Next is 2400 MHz, again no issue here at all. Now the big jump to 2600 MHz. There is where I ran into some issues. The system would not boot at this frequency. I tried very loose timings and a large voltage bump to no avail, so our max overclock was 2400 MHz, a 267 MHz overclock.
