Test system setup

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (1. OC @ 3.2GHz, 400MHz FSB, 2.OC @ 3.56GHz, 445MHz FSB)
Akasa Revo Cooler
Motherboard: Asus P5E3
HDD: Western Digital 80GB JS
VGA: eVGA 7900GS
PSU: OCZ ModXstream 780W

Software used:

Sisoft Sandra 2007.5.11.35
Everest Ultimate Edition
PcMark 2005
F.E.A.R.

As no system will currently support 1600MHz DDR-3 RAM natively, our system had to be severely overclocked in order to be up to the task. A 20% overclock brought our E6750 to 3.2GHz and the use of the proper CPU to RAM divider got the RAM running at 1600MHz. In order to reach higher RAM speed, further CPU and FSB overclocking was required. We reached the top speed of the modules at 445MHz FSB speed, a 33% overclock. Timings are manually set in the BIOS. Intel Speedstep technology is disabled. 

In our attempt to overclock the modules, we found out that the modules could retain their rated timings up to 1780MHz without even applying a voltage higher than 1.9V. The speed gain from the extra 180MHz is considerable, however the overclocking behavior of the modules beyond that point was very erratic. Loosening the timings or applying higher voltage or even combinations of both would not help with overclocking the modules any further. It would seem like the modules ‘hit a wall’ at that speed. Afterwards, we searched for the best possible timings the Ballistix could hold at their rated speed of 1800MHz with a minor increase of Vdimm voltage at 1.9V. Interestingly enough the modules worked flawlessly with 7-6-6-18 timings and the 1T command enabled, giving a considerable performance boost.

Note: The results we received from the benchmarks with the modules running at 1600MHz and 1780MHz are not directly comparable to each other since the FSB and CPU speeds are considerably higher when the RAM is running at 1780MHz, affecting the benchmark results.