OCZ Platinum PC3-12800 2GB Memory Kit Review - Test Bench & Overclocking

Overclocking Disclaimer

First and foremost, when purchasing a kit of RAM (or any component, for that matter) overclocking results are never guaranteed. Many factors can influence what a kit is capable of, including complimentary components (motherboard, processor, power supply), user experience, and simple luck of the draw. Two identical systems will not necessarily yield identical results, and anything over the rated specification should be treated as a bonus, not an expectation.

HardwareLogic has some of the most stringent memory testing on the web. When it comes to stability, we require a kit pass five cycles with the Ultra-X R.S.T PRO2 Memory Tester (The same testing hardware used by Corsair Memory and several other memory manufacturers to validate kits, however even most memory companies only require a kit to pass three cycles). We then require the test kit pass our entire benchmarking suite without error. If a memory kit can pass this torture test.....We consider it 100% stable.

Starting out, we like to test a kit's versatility. We tightened the timings to 6-6-6-20-1T (that's not a typo folks - we said a 1T command rate). While the OCZ Platinum PC3-12800 kit wouldn't boot at the DDR3 spec of 1.5V, it only took a marginal bump of voltage to 1.7V to get 100% stability at DDR3-1389. Pushing the voltage to 2.0V (which does void your warranty) took us past the kit's rated clock speed of DDR3-1600 to 1620MHz.

Next, we decided to see how far the OCZ Platinum PC3-12800 would scale with its default latencies of 7-6-6-24. Keeping the voltage at the rated 1.9V, we were able to push the kit all the way to DDR3-1773. Bumping the voltage again to 2.0V took us only marginally further, settling in at DDR3-1797.

Loosening the latencies to 8-8-8-24, we were able to push well past 1800MHz to 1873MHz - very good, but well short of the 2000MHz others have seen (it's worth re-mentioning that our rigorous stability testing takes no prisoners - read the disclaimer above if you glossed over it). Loosening the latencies to 9-9-9-27 the OCZ Platinum PC3-12800 topped out at a respectable 1893MHz.

Switching between several boards over the last couple of weeks to verify our results yielded the same numbers. To this end we feel very comfortable, and looking back, the results are hardly disappointing.

The difference between a 1T and 2T command rate isn't dramatic. While moving to 2T allowed for a slight bump in clock speed, it wasn't worth the trade off in overall performance.