MSI has set a new computing record, achieving the highest overclock frequency for a DDR4 RAM module. Kovan Yang, a member of MSI’s memory overclocking team, overclocked an 8GB HyperX Predator stick to 7,156MHz - well above the standard 2,400MHz the component can normally achieve.
Yang’s setup (as shared on HWBOT) used an 11th-gen Intel Core i9 processor. Crucially, the team also had to rely on liquid nitrogen, a non-standard cooling method as you can see in the image below.
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If you’re wondering why the submission says MSI only achieved 3578MHz, that’s because the DDR part of DDR4 stands for double data rate - so you have to double what was recorded to get the ‘true’ value.
Bethesda demonstrated liquid nitrogen cooling in a video where they achieved 1,000 FPS in Doom Eternal - and unless you have a friend to constantly pour more of the fluid into your system, you won’t be achieving either feat soon.
This extreme custom cooling method allowed MSI to win the memory overclocking crown. If you feel a need to upgrade your own PC’s RAM now, check out our best RAM of 2021 list to see what we’d recommend.
What is overclocking and how do you do it?
Overclocking is a process where you run your components at a higher frequency than intended. It can seem quite complex and aggressive from the outside, but it’s actually a rather common and easy thing to do with most PC hardware - as long as you take some care.
The reason a higher clock speed - measured in MHz or megahertz - is useful is because that frequency denotes how many commands it can handle per second.
So, the overclocked 8GB HyperX Predator 2400 memory module can perform 7,156 million processes per second.
While you likely won’t be able to achieve those numbers, you can check out our overclocking guide to find how you could get a little more power out of your CPU, GPU, and RAM.
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