Overclocking, Tuning, Bandwidth And Latency
Our previous DDR4 comparison provided full details of my current test platform, which is designed with a fast-enough CPU and GPU to overcome most bottlenecks, and includes a (purportedly) DDR4-3250-capable motherboard. Unfortunately, none of my previous DDR4-3000 samples have reached this motherboard’s overclocking stability limit using ordinary adjustments.
Kingston’s HyperX Predator won’t be the first memory kit to push this motherboard’s DRAM overclocking limits either, yet I’m certain that its overclocking limits can be found in secondary and tertiary timings. Shorter timings provide better performance while reducing overclock capability, so we might even find a top performer today.
Best Stable Timings
Kingston HyperX Predator
G.Skill Ripjaws 4 16GB
On the other hand, top performance might not be in the cards for Kingston’s more modestly-priced HyperX Predator. While it certainly doesn't need those loose 15-16-16 timings to reach DDR4-3000, it never quite catches the optimized values of its high-priced predecessor.
Secondary and tertiary timings need to be dramatically slower to make up for the performance gained by a small change in primary timings, though. And that might even be the situation, since Kingston’s lower-cost memory barely trails our higher-priced samples.
Remembering that smaller is better when it comes to latency (wait time), Kingston Predator X barely trails our more-expensive G.Skill Ripjaws 4 samples.
