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I considered the RAM "stable" if the machine would cold-boot, load Win98 SE, let me log in and run WCPUID, Sandra's CPU, MultiMedia and Memory benchmarks (capturing screenshots of each result, pasting into Paint and saving to the C: drive) then shutdown cleanly without any errors. When the RAM was above the "stable" threshhold I experienced Explorer restarts, abnormal pauses and of course, failure to finish loading Windows.

By this critera, the Kingmax DDR-266 was stable at CAS2 right up to an impressive 162MHz DDR:

WCPUID click to enlarge

Sandra CPU click to enlarge

Sandra MultiMedia click to enlarge

Sandra Memory click to enlarge

Lowering the CAS speed to 2.5 allowed the RAM to complete testing at 165MHz. The board would actually load windows at CAS2.5 right up to 170MHz but had Explorer restarts etc. I'd be pretty confident that this 3MHz increase is not reflective of the RAM's top speed, rather our testbed's, and if you had a system capable of pushing the RAM higher you'd have even better results at CAS2.5 than we got:

WCPUID click to enlarge

Sandra CPU click to enlarge

Sandra MultiMedia click to enlarge

Sandra Memory click to enlarge

Not too shabby at all. However, the Gigabyte board has the ability to boost RAM voltage. A lot of boards don't so I left it at default for the testing above - I feel it's more an indication of the board's ability to drive the RAM beyond its limits rather than a feature of the RAM. Once I'd established the basic overclocking ability of the stick I decided to have a play around in a "go for broke" attempt to get a high Sandra Memory benchmark score, not worrying about the other benchmarks and not testing the stability as much. After a fair bit of fiddling, by boosting the RAM voltage from 2.5v to 2.6v I could get my lowly Duron 700 to run 170x5.5.. at CAS2! Yup, the RAM completed the Memory benchmark at 170MHz. I wouldn't call the box entirely stable, but it's hard to point the finger at exactly what is failing, whether it's the RAM or something else in the testbed. Anyway, these are some impressive numbers - remember this isn't a TBird 1.4 or anything, it's a Duron 700 at 170x5.5:

click to enlarge

Conclusions
Kingmax's RAM continues to impress. Very respectable performance priced well and backed by their lifetime warranty. Once again, as with all their products we've reviewed to date, recommended.

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