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Overclocker smashes RAM speed record, hits 5GHz with G.Skill memory and MSI motherboard

msi gskill hits 5ghz memory overclock g skill trident z
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G.Skill and MSI are currently boasting that the 5GHz DDR4 memory clock speed is no longer an unbreakable barrier, as Taiwanese overclocking expert Toppc managed to smash through the limit by using MSI’s Z170I Gaming Pro AC motherboard and a Trident Z Series DDR4 memory chip supplied by G.Skill. Thanks to this combination, Toppc not only achieved the world’s first DDR4-5000 record, but the highest clock speed for memory ever thus far.

“We are extremely excited to achieve this great milestone together with Samsung components and MSI motherboard,” says Tequila Huang, Corporate Vice President and Director of R&D, G.SKILL International.  “We will continually push hardware performance to the limits and provide enthusiasts with even more advanced products.”

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G.Skill’s Trident Z Series DDR4 memory uses “specially screened” integrated circuits provided by Samsung, and are designed for Intel’s sixth-generation Core processors with its Z170 series chipset. According to the company, this memory stick family was designed with an “aggressive” fin form factor that’s highly efficient in heat dissipation.

G.Skill’s DDR4 sticks are offered with a number of different clock speeds ranging from 2,800MHz to a blistering 4,133MHz. Now thanks to Toppc, we know G.Skill’s fastest Trident Z sticks can push even more speed.

The new 5,002.4MHz speed was officially verified by HWBOT and CPU-Z. According to CPU-Z, the test used one single-channel 4GB DDR4 memory stick with a base clock of 2,501.2MHz crammed into slot #1 on the MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC motherboard. The test system also utilized a quad-core Intel Core i5-6600K “Skylake” processor (engineering sample) with a lowered frequency of 968.17MHz (down 72 percent from the base clock).

“This world record is a milestone in component history, breaks the magical 5,000MHz mark and shows MSI’s dominant position on performance for Z170,” MSI told the press. “The little Z170I GAMING PRO AC motherboard, using MSI’s unique DDR4 Boost technology, is not only packed with gaming features, it also shows that it’s perfectly suited to deliver plenty of power for heavy gaming & overclocking sessions.”

The details listed on HWBOT show that the test bed used liquid nitrogen to keep everything super cool. Other hardware components consisted of a MSI GeForce 9400 GT graphics card with GDDR3 VRAM (550MHz, 700MHz), and a 64GB SSDNow V300 SSD supplied by Kingston Technology.

Kevin Parrish
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kevin started taking PCs apart in the 90s when Quake was on the way and his PC lacked the required components. Since then…
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