It's often said records are meant to be broken, and so it was only a matter of time before a new one was set for the highest overclocked DDR4 RAM frequency. That distinction now belongs to Micron and its Crucial Ballistix memory, which topped 6GHz.
The new record now stands at precisely 6024.4MHz (validated by CPU-Z). Engineering teams from Asus and Micron "worked tirelessly" on the achievement by fine tuning BIOS settings in an X570 ROG Crosshair VIII Impact motherboard, which housed a Ryzen 5 3600X CPU and an 8GB Crucial Ballistix Elite 4000 memory module.
It's certainly an impressive feat, and it comes a month and a half after G.Skill won the race to 6GHz with its Trident Z Royal memory; renowned overclocker Toppc used the RAM to hit 6016.8MHz.
"Ballistix memory has set three overclocking world records in the span of five months, which is a testament to our world-class Micron engineering and expertise," said Teresa Kelley, CPG vice president and general manager. "We are committed to providing gamers and enthusiasts with high-performance memory that delivers maximum system capability and a rich experience, and our Ballistix memory is evidence of that."
Crucial and Ballistix are both brands of Micron's, the latter of which is focused on gaming.
"Sure, Ballistix is proud of its latest achievement. But we hope our third record in recent memory makes a second point that is perhaps more important to our gaming audience: We’ve chased records. We’ve set records. We will innovate gaming products that scrap for every last megatransfer as we strive for our next high score—and help you set yours," Ballistix said.
It will be interesting to see how long the record stands, and how far DDR4 can be further stretched before DDR5 arrives next year.
