Memory overclocking:
For memory overclocking, we changed our kit and installed the GSKill Trident Z5 5600 MHz CL36 at 1.20 volt. The idea was to choose the kit with, in our opinion, the best overclocking potential. And you will see, we were not mistaken.
Choosing your DDR5 kit based on memory chips:
As it was already the case for DDR4, if you want to clock your memory, some brands will have a better potential. Currently, the kits announced by the various brands benefit either from Micron chips or Hynix chips or Samsung chips. The latter two brands will be the most interesting. Our GSKill Trident Z5 5600 MHz CL36 kit is equipped with Samsung chips.
DDR5 “key” voltages:
For memory overclocking, there are 4 key voltages. These are the voltages that will have an impact on the overclocking and therefore on the frequency rise or the tightening of the timings. These are the CPU System Agent Voltage (SA), the DRAM VVD Voltage, the DRAM VVDQ Voltage, the Memory Controller Voltage and the IVR Transmitter VVDQ Voltage. Here is where these voltages are located in the BIOS.
Attention, depending on the type of memory chips (Micron, Hynix and Samsung), the balance between these different voltages is different. Don’t panic, we will come back to this in our guide on Alder Lake and DDR5 overclocking. If your PMIC module is not locked, by activating “High DRAM Voltage Mode”, you will have access to voltages up to 2 volts.
Let’s go overclocking this DDR5 from GSKill:
Before we started overclocking, we quickly compared the performance between the Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 5200 MHz CL38 kit and the GSKill kit. The least we can say is that the differences are very important as shown in the first two lines of our summary table. In a few days, we will start testing each of these kits in order to start a new comparison. As a reminder, our kit is equipped with Samsung chips. For this type of chips, we can keep an identical voltage between the VDD and the VVDQ. We were able to push without changing anything the frequency to 5800 MHz. Then we activated the profile available in the BIOS to switch to 6000 CL32 and the least we can say is that the performance takes off. The other frequencies were not always 100% stable, but as we often say, memory overclocking takes time!
We will refine these overclocking in the coming days but the 6600 MHz CL38 is within reach. The “OC” profile at 6000 MHz CL32 1T is ultra powerful! In addition, we find a latency of 57.9 very interesting.
BOOM, pushing the CPU and DDR5:
We push our i9-12900K to 5.3 GHz on the eight P cores and DDR5 with the profile 6000 CL32 to see what it will give under AIDA64, Geekbench 3 and Geekbench 5.
What if we were to propose these results to you by taking the ones we obtained at the stock frequencies of our i9-12900K and combined with the Corsair 5200 MHz CL38 kit? There, we will be able to fully judge the gains made.
In short, as you can see, overclocking DDR5 is going to be a lot of fun, maybe even more than DDR4. You can also see the importance and usefulness of the profiles present in Asus BIOSes. Thanks to the team behind and working on these different BIOS and profiles.
