G.Skill Flare F3-16000CL7D-4GBFLS Memory Review

ajmatson - August 5, 2010

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Testing:

Now we get to the testing of the G.Skill Flare memory. I will be putting this set through the paces, testing how they perform at stock and overclocked speeds. To get the rated speed of 2000MHz on the memory, you will need to start your system off in an overclocked state. To give you an idea on how the faster speeds increase system performance, I compared the Flare to several other sets of memory on the market running at their stock and overclocked speeds. To keep the tests as fair as possible, I will be lowering the CPU multiplier to keep the CPU speed as close to the 3.2GHz stock speed as I can. All other hardware will remain at the same speeds, timings, and voltages as well, to keep out any variables from interfering with our results.

Testing Setup:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T
Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P SE
Motherboard: ASUS M4A89GTD Pro/USB3
Memory: G.Skill Flare F3-16000CL7D-4GBFLS DDR3-2000MHz 7-9-7-24
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 5870
Power Supply: Mushkin XP-800AP 800W PSU
HDD: Patriot Torqx 64GB SSD
Optical Drive: LG SUpermulti DVD-R/W
OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Comparison Modules:

Mushkin Blackline 996744 DDR3-1600MHz
Corsair XMS3 DHX DDR3-1600MHz 9-9-9-24
OCZ Spec Ops Urban Elite DDR3-1600MHz 8-8-8-24

CPU-Z: This application shows us the settings that we have chosen in the BIOS. Items shown in this application include CPU speed and bus settings, motherboard manufacturer, BIOS revisions, memory timings, and SPD chip information.

Task Manager: We use this utility to show physical memory, kernel memory, page file, and processor usage.

Overclocking:

Overclocked Settings:

Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T @ 3.2GHz (267x12)
Memory: G.Skill Flare F3-16000CL7D-4GBFLS @ 2134MHz 9-10-9-27

Overclocking the G.Skill Flare memory was a challenge since it is clocked so high at stock speeds already. To push the set further, I had to really play with the voltages and BUS speed little by little. I had to loosen the timings up to get any more and ended up pushing them to 9-10-9-27, which gave me the stability I needed. I was able to get the BUS speed to 267MHz, which yielded a total memory speed of 2134MHz. To make sure I was okay, I ran memtest86+ several times and passed with no errors. Seeing that I could not get any more, I booted into Windows and ran the benchmarks with no stability issues at all. For the overclocked tests, the final settings will be 2134MHz at 9-10-9-27.

The maximum memory speed for each set of modules when overclocked is a measure of how well the modules ran on these particular modules and test system. As such, your results may differ in either a positive or negative way based on the capabilities of your hardware.

The benchmarks used in this review include the following:

Benchmarks: