Oddball memory overclocking performance

[Juddog]

So I finally get my RAM set at 1992 Mhz, loose timings. Uncore at 4000 Mhz, QPI at 3600.

I started running benchmarks to make sure it's stable, e.g. LinX, and noticed something odd: my system received a higher GFlops with the RAM at 1600 than it did with the RAM at 1992. To see if it was a fluke or not I ran some other benchmarks like 3dMark06, and lo and behold the same thing - I scored higher on all the benchmarks I ran with the RAM at 1600 instead of 1992.

So now I have to wonder - is there any benefit to running a higher RAM clock speed versus a slightly lower speed with tighter timings?

 

[Idontcare]

latency versus bandwidth

Some apps are latency-bound, others are bandwidth-bound.

The performance you see in any given app will reflect the dependency of that app, but no general rule of thumb can be derived from your observations.

If your apps of interest seem to benefit from tighter timings at the expense of lowered bandwidth then obviously there is a benefit to you pursuing that. For others it is the opposite.