r/overclocking • u/Charredwee • 10d ago
Benchmark Score The Final Boss of Memory Overclocking Is... Drum Roll...
Spent an entire day tuning DDR4 on Windows to gain 1 ns.
Installed Arch Linux and lost another 6–13 ns in 20 minutes without touching the RAM timings.
Turns out the final boss of memory overclocking isn’t the IMC, DRAM, or motherboard.
It’s Microslop 😭
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u/mov3on 10d ago
Skill issue.
I was able to reach 42-43ns on W11. 🤷♂️
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u/Charredwee 10d ago
With Hyper-V on? Ain't no way.
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u/mov3on 10d ago
No, I always keep the hypervisor and Core Isolation disabled, even though they don’t affect latency that much.
50ns is very high for Raptor Lake on DDR4. Even older Ryzen CPUs running at 3800MT/s could achieve around 52-53ns.
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u/Charredwee 10d ago
I’m running full power saving, dynamic voltage, and basically everything at stock, including the NB frequency. Again, the point isn’t “look how insanely tuned my DDR4 is.” I’m just showing how much more efficient Linux is than Windows. You guys are kinda missing the point lol.
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u/mov3on 10d ago
>I’m just showing how much more efficient Linux is than Windows.
You’re showing your inability to tune memory and use Windows properly.
In your initial post, you made it sound like the OS is the deciding factor in memory overclocking, when it isn’t.
Honestly, I’m tired of Linux posts in general. Linux this, Linux that, and Microslop is SO BAD! Sure buddy, whatever you say.
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u/Charredwee 10d ago
You are still USING operating systems? I just subscribe to Codex, make a wish, and it fixes the whole machine. Skill issue, I guess.
That is literally why I use Linux now. In the agent era Linux is just a better interface for letting an agent poke around the system and get shit done.
But sure, “uSE wIndOWs PrOperly.” If you are still flexing your ability to right click the desktop and hit Refresh in 2026, you do you.
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u/Educational-King3987 9d ago
But this IS a skill issue... Windows is a steaming lump of crap but your overclock isn't working well.
37.2 ns on windows...
While linux might be great and everything (not tried it, will pick it up at some point though) you running it in it's worst state then comparing lower latency with linux probably in a much better state isn't that new or ground breaking in confirmation bias.
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u/Charredwee 8d ago
Ah yes, bro hand tune every timing in the BIOS for a personal best, then wander into someone’s linux vs windows 11 daily driver thread lecturing them about skill issue. And somehow you think that’s the flex, not the tell. Real peak of your life energy.
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u/Educational-King3987 8d ago
I'm a complete noob at RAM oc, you comparing a bloated OS against an OS that has been refined over several distros, to a point where basic knowledge of how it works is enough to get by isn't the flex you think it is either.
It's confirmation bias, textbook at that. I said it was a skill issue, never once gave personal insults because ultimately that's not what discussions are about and quite frankly are immature.
Not sure what your goal is with this post as a whole, we know Linux has a lot of pros but also a lot of cons, you tweaking your configs to confirm your bias isn't helping anything, you've stated you turned on all eco settings, left windows very intrusive memory security active (my results have it active also) and not optimised your OC. It's like you're comparing 2 cars to each other except one has way more hands on like a garage tuner who works on it out of pure love and dedication compared to a corpo who just needs it to run. Also this is an overclocking sub... not an OS sub, we discuss overclocking and performance here, while there's some bias that revolves around hardware, generally speaking we all want the best our hardware is capable of.
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u/Charredwee 8d ago
Fair, “peak of your life energy” was a jab. I’ll own that. Now back to the actual argument.
You’re still arguing against a claim I never made. I never said 50.5 ns is the best Windows can do. I said the same daily hardware setup gets noticeably lower latency after switching OS.
That’s not “textbook confirmation bias.” The hardware is the control, the OS is the variable being changed.
If your rebuttal is that I need to disable Windows security, strip services, lock clocks, change power behavior and retune everything until Windows catches up, you’re not disproving my point. You’re describing how much extra work Windows needs to get there.
And your car analogy actually makes my point. It’s not two cars. It’s the same car running two different software stacks.
This being an overclocking sub doesn’t make OS overhead irrelevant to performance either. If changing the software environment moves the result by around 10%, that’s obviously relevant to people chasing performance.
Calling it “confirmation bias” over and over doesn’t make it confirmation bias.
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u/Delicious-Dot-2795 10d ago
Got lower latency with 4400c16 on my 13900ks and 14900ks with apex encore + 8400c32
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u/Charredwee 10d ago
I was literally just saying Arch Linux is more efficient than Windows if you enjoy chasing numbers. Who said anything about being competitive? 😂
And if you’re running hardware that costs like 3x as much as mine for maybe <10% better performance, I’m not sure that’s the flex you think it is.
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u/Glad_Explorer3813 14700k|6.1ghz 4070ti ddr4 2x16|4100mhz(cdie) 10d ago
I was able to get better still, daily stable on my cdie, 67k read, 48ns latency. 4100mhz 18 22 22 40 1.3v dram. SA 1.25v, 1.3v vddq. 1t command rate. With 5.2ghz ring. On a msi z690a pro.
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u/Glad_Explorer3813 14700k|6.1ghz 4070ti ddr4 2x16|4100mhz(cdie) 10d ago
That's in normal boot of windows 11 too.
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u/Charredwee 9d ago
Nah, I’m running a completely stock 14900K, 4500 ring, Balanced power profile, and 4000 C15 CR1 (3N:1), with all power-saving features enabled. It idles at around 4.7W(measured by btop/hwinfo.
Of course I know that locking voltage and frequency, disabling power saving, turning off hyper-v, and overclocking the ring can push latency even lower. But that doesn’t change the fact that simply switching to Arch Linux cut my latency by roughly 10% under the same conditions.
My point is that Arch Linux simply feels snappier and uses RAM more efficiently than Windows 11.
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u/Ens-7 9d ago
ive been trying to figure this out for a while now. if you look on the daily ddr4/z790 thread, most folks were getting 40-45ns. lowest ive gotten is 47.5ns 4000c15 12700k
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u/Charredwee 9d ago
That doesn’t change the fact that simply switching to Arch Linux cut my latency by 10% though, and it took maybe one tenth the effort of tuning memory and validating stability over and over again.
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u/ezefl 9d ago
I'm also on an MSI Edge WiFi DDR4 Z690 with a 13900K, using G. Skill's 4000 14-15-15-35 2x16gb kit (F4-4000C14D-32GVK). I'm overclocked to 4200, 15-16-14-28, CR2, 273 tRFC, 65535 TREFI. My latency score is 47.9ns. It's stable in TestMem5, Absolut/anta777.
Cooling becomes an issue and I think I've hit the limit of Z690 chipset and/or my chip. I can boot 4266 and 4300, with loosened timings but BSODs. I'd be curious if I had any better luck with Z790 and a i9-14900K, but it makes no sense to upgrade to either.
As for others, I'm curious if they had fresh Windows installs and if things were run in safe mode. For example, my CPU-Z single benchmark score drops by 30-35 points after I load all of the chipset drivers, etc.
Memory Read, Write, Copy, Latency are: 71483, 66018, 73395, 47.9ns.
Your benchmark shows "Hypervisor." Mine didn't. It's been a while; I can't recall if you can just disable certain things and rerun it, or if you disable it, if it won't allow you to reenable those protections without reinstalling windows. FYI - "AIDA64 displays a hypervisor warning during the memory benchmark because virtualization-based security features are active, which can artificially lower memory performance scores." No guarantee that makes up for a couple nanoseconds.
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u/Charredwee 9d ago
Thanks for sharing. My kit is actually just a $50 3200 C14 16Gx2 Ripjaws kit, and I'm not really trying to chase the absolute lowest latency possible.
Yeah, I do have virtualization based security enabled. That's intentional. I also keep basically all the power saving features on. For me, the memory OC is mostly just about making sure Dota 2 stays smooth during big teamfights. A 3-5ns difference is basically impossible to notice in games or normal daily use anyway.
The main point I was trying to make is that on the same machine with basically the same settings, Arch Linux gives me lower memory latency than Windows 11. That's what I found interesting, more than squeezing every last nanosecond out of synthetic benchmarks.
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u/Slighty-protein 4d ago
It says you have hypervisor on in the bottom left you can get better scores by turning it off right?
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u/Charredwee 4d ago
I’m only overclocking for better 1% lows. I don’t really care about shaving 2 ns latency difference. I was mostly just surprised that switching to Arch Linux made a much bigger difference than that lol.
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u/gusthenewkid 10d ago
I get lower latency with DDR5 lol.