Overclocking is always fun and almost everyone can do it, however, when it comes to extreme overclocking, there are only a handful of persons doing it. Today, a Chinese extreme overclocker "baby-j" has managed to establish a new world record frequency with his Crucial Ballistix Max DDR4-4000 (BLM16G40C18U4B.M8FB1) memory kit. Using liquid nitrogen (LN2) cooling for the DIMMs, the overclocker managed to push the memory kit to an amazing 7004.2 MHz, making it the world's highest frequency hit on DDR4 memory. What is more amazing is the fact that the platform used for the new record-setting overclock, is based on AMD's B550 motherboards running with AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4650G processor, which seems to have a very good memory controller. The timings were a bit relaxed with them running at 22-26-26-46-127-1 (tCAS-tRC-tRP-tRAS-tCS-tCR) settings.

A new HWBot entry has proven what some thought impossible years ago: AMD apparently features the best memory controller in the x86 consumer space. A user going by the alias Bianbao XE achieved a 6,666 MHz frequency on a single stick of Crucial Ballistix Max. The stick's original rating is for a mere 2,666 MHz - doesn't that put things in perspective?

Another thing that puts things into perspective is that the support for such an overclocking feat was a ROG Strix B550-I Gaming motherboard (min-ITX means smaller tracing distance between CPU and memory, and thus higher signal integrity) paired with none other than AMD's Ryzen 7 4700GE 'Renoir'. The APU was underclocked and overvolted - a technique that aimed to increase stability of the memory controller whilst also reducing operating temperatures (balancing the higher voltage and lower frequency). Of course, memory timings were loosened to achieve this feat (timings of 30-27-27-58 aren't what you'd usually like to see), but then again, this wasn't meant to power the utmost memory performance - only the highest frequency. And that was definitely achieved.