A professional overclocker cranked a G.Skill DDR4 memory kit to 5.5GHz

While companies were showing off new products at Computex, G.Skill was hosting its 7th annual OC World Record Stage, and the event did not disappoint. Over a dozen overclocking records were set, all using G.Skill memory, including the fastest DDR4 memory frequency to date.

Professional overclocker "Toppc" earned that particular one for G.Skill using the company's Trident Z RGB memory. He was able to push the RAM to a blazing fast 5,543MHz in an MSI Z370I Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard paired with an Intel Core i7-8700K processor.

It's not clear what type of cooling was used to achieve the record DDR RAM frequency. Just last week, G.Skill talked about releasing a 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-5066 memory kit with its standard Trident Z RGB heatspreaders. There are other high-frequency kits out there as well, most of which use Samsung 8Gb chips, including the one that reached a record frequency.

This suggests that the overclock might have been achieved on air, though a video of the event shows there was plenty of LN2 on hand. There's also a brief shot of a system submerged in oil. However, the video is a montage of overclocking feats, and not specifically focused on the memory record. We've reached out to G.Skill for clarification on what exact cooling was used to hit 5.5GHz and will update this article when we hear back.

Toppc wasn't the only one to hit the 5.5GHz mark, either.

"On the same day, another pro extreme overclocker named Kovan Yang overclocked the Trident Z RGB memory to a whopping DDR4-5541.4MHz, reaching the second spot on the fastest memory frequency rankings, with an MSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard and an Intel Core™ i7-7740X processor. This marks the first time that the top two memory frequency records are set on two different chipset platforms," G.Skill said.

Overall, G.Skill's RAM was used to set 13 overclocking records, as outlined above. That's a pretty impressive run, considering that overclockers attempt records all year long. 

Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).