Intel’s X48 Unlocks Insane Tweaking-Abilities

We’ve discussed Intel’s imminent X48 launch for a few months now, but the date is coming ever closer. Two to three weeks is the given estimate, and from what we can see, it’s going to be one refreshing “refresh”. AnandTech has taken the new ASUS Rampage Formula for a spin and are incredibly pleased with it’s performance and tweaking ability.

That’s no understatement. By the looks of things, the Rampage will be the definitive tweaking motherboard, opening up new features such as tRD and tweak it’s various settings. I admit, even current motherboards are too over-the-top for me… I appreciate the time I have and would rather not be stuck in front of an overclocking screen, but there are clearly many out there who love to squeeze as much possible performance out of their hardware – the Rampage is for you guys.

This article takes an exhausting look at tRD and how it works, but also takes care of simpler things, such as how to calculate DDR speeds, latencies and the like. But the question is… does all this tweaking ability really make a difference? In the case of tRD, it certainly does. Huge gains can be seen in the memory bandwidth and latency department… making it a setting any enthusiast will want to dabble with. This is definitely X48’s best-kept secret.

Using the default tRD of 12, our system was able to reach a maximum memory read bandwidth value of 7,597 MB/s – a predictable result considering the rather relaxed configuration. Tightening tRD all the way to a setting of 5 provides us with dramatically different results: 9,166 MB/s, more than 20% higher total throughput!

Source: AnandTech