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Overclocking

t was easy to get an extra 100MHz out of the Aeneon XTune DDR3-1600's, but no matter what I tried, I could not get them stable running any faster. I tried voltages up to 1.7V, increased Northbridge and FSB voltages, all to no avail. I had to increase the processor core voltage to 1.475V to get it stable at 8x425.

I also had no luck decreasing the latencies; I encountered many "Blue Screens of Death" and sometimes the motherboard would not even POST when I tried to decrease the latencies.

Conclusion

The Aeneon XTune DDR3-1600 certainly met their specifications, and worked well at the rated DDR3-1600 9-9-9-28 setting. moreover, the memory profile worked well on the Asus board, automatically configuring the memory for DDR3-1600 without user intervention.

The ability to run at 1700MHz was an unexpected bonus, and it was even able to do it at the stock 1.5V memory voltage - the reason that the overclocking was unexpected is that DDR3-1600 is still relatively new, and it will probably be another year or two before its processes are so refined that we can get crazy overclocks from DDR3 rated to that speed.

In the end, I think the Aeneon XTune DDR3-1600's are fine memory sticks, but the only question is how good of a value do they offer? I was unable to come up with some current pricing for these modules, so all I can give you is a general guideline: If you can get the Aeoneon XTune DDR3-1600's for roughly the same amount of money as DDR2-1066 (PC8500) memory, you are doing well, as they would be roughly comparable in performance.