Hi everyone,! I just joined here,& I could really use some help with the best settings for OCing my 8500 Dominators as well as my XMS2 Pro PC6400s. I own two highend rigs,and would like to get the best performane from the memory. You can see both rigs specs in my sig.
Thanks

Howdy - nice overclocks on your cpu's.

Both sets of RAM will run 4-4-4-12 1T on the Striker @ 2.2v for the Doms (2.1v for the pro) up around 900Mhz for the 6400s and in the mid- to high-900's for the 8500s. That is usually is a faster position for the RAM than 4-4-4-12 2T which will give you 50-100 extra Mhz over 1T at the same timings. At 5-5-5-15 (or -18) you should be able to get in the neighborhood of 1050 - 1100Mhz with the 8500s - on the lower end of that range with the high overclocks at which you're running your cpu's.

The question will be which of these three settings will give you the best performance. Often it's the 1T setting, but not always. Use Everest Ultimate's memory benchmark to -*test*-('") throughput and SuperPi 1M to -*test*-('") calculation speed, and a 3DM bench to -*test*-('") the effect of speed & timings on graphics speeds - depending on what type of activities you want the RAM speed for.

In speaking to a Corsair tech about voltage, the highest end dominators that come with the fan sets are warranteed @ 2.4v. The non-fan doms are the same RAM as the more expensive stuff, but they are only rated to 2.2v and not warrantied above that. With the fans you could push it above 2.2v to see if you get any more speed, but you do hear about fried Doms. With a 92 mm fan blowing on the RAM, I tentatively tried above 2.2v to see if it gave any more speed. It didn't, but I didn't -*test*-('") extensively because of the risk, and only tried two times and never again.

You can also mess around with the sub-timings to get maybe 50MB/z more throughput if you've got the time. If you do this in the BIOS and the setting's wrong it won't boot. If you use a windows utility to change sub-timings you can crash your OS hard. Only do that if you have the nerve, Acronis or Ghost backup of your system, and you are prepared for for the worst case which can happen pretty easily and without warning.