| Hardware |
Model |
| Motherboard: |
eVGA nforce 680i SLI |
| CPU |
Intel
C2D E6400 |
| Video Card |
eVGA 8800GTS 320 |
| Storage |
Seagate 400GB SATA |
| Optical |
Lite-On 16X DVD+/-RW with
Lightscribe |
| Memory |
Patriot PC2-9600ELK |
| Cooling |
Corsair Nautilus 500 Water cooling
kit |
According to Patriot's website, it's safe to run the memory at
2.3v. For overclocking, I used 2.35v. This is the
maximum safe voltage to run and not void the warranty. You
can overclock this memory a couple of ways, manually or using
the EPP settings.
EPP and
SLI-Ready Memory Explained
The EPP feature only works with "SLI-Ready" memory. The
SLI-Ready Memory setting in the bios is, in my opinion, for
the inexperienced, and/or to quickly setup the memory bus
speed settings. It identifies the memory and correctly sets
the memory bus speed. It does not change anything else,
including memory timings. Not to knock the EPP feature, but
EPP is not a magical setting that will automatically overclock
memory or lower memory timings below factory recommendations.
SLI-Ready memory will work with just about any non EPP
motherboard and you do not need SLI-Ready memory to run in a
SLI motherboard. EPP and SLI-Ready memory is only an
enhancement feature. I decided to set the BIOS to expert
and manually configure the memory.
Results
While I didn't expect the memory to overclock very much, I was
able to get a little more out of it. I was able to push
the memory to 1244MHz. I was impressed with the memory's
ability to overclock, while keeping the memory at its default
timings of 5-5-5-12. This provided a nice little boost
in performance.
