The PSC Report

[redux]

Hey all,

 

You may know me from the prodigious amount of PSC DDR3 that I binned and sold over the years, maybe some strong air results, but not so much from actual BOT submissions or scores. Although I subbed frequently when I first joined the bot, and went cold a couple of times, most of my time in OC became focused on binning for the sake of better understanding and measuring the limits of what hardware can achieve, not climbing the leaderboards. Basically, I tended to be more research-oriented about OC than competitive.

 

Anyway, my single biggest project was binning PSC, and I always had this idea of creating "The PSC Report," a gigantic summary of all my findings. It took me a long time to actually put it together, but recently I finished it! I published it elsewhere, but I didn't want these findings to only be behind a paywall, so I've put it up for free here:

 

[Public] DDR3 Elpida_PSC 1Gbit Rev.D Overclocking Test Report.pdf

This report details the results of research conducted into the DDR3 memory IC PSC/Elpida 1Gb Rev.D (A.K.A. "PSC" or "BDDG") in the context of competitive overclocking and binning modeling. This includes a brief history, competitive context, and demystification of nomenclature and identification. This is followed by a detailed overclocking test report, containing statistical models gathered at various points across the IC voltage-frequency curve, percentile binning targets, and analysis of the tested memory modules and the effect of characteristics such as PCB model and speed rating on their performance. We hope that these findings will inspire further research into constructing behavioral models of overclocked computer hardware with statistical and scientific rigor.

 

The scientist in me must acknowledge the report is limited and imperfect, (years late to the party ,) and just barely scratching the surface of the world of PSC overclocking. There's so much ground I could not cover, in particular systematically testing subzero results and investigating whether any robust relationship could be measured between ambient and cold.

 

I'm not the first to conduct a mass binning, but to my knowledge, no single, cohesive work like this has ever been attempted in the history of OC. Even if you're not interested in this area of legacy hardware, I hope my work at least demonstrates that as messy as it can be, it is possible to systematically understand overclocking, and you can learn a lot by doing so!

 

For the "screens or it didn't happen" folks, you can find all of my screens, for PSC and otherwise, archived here.

 

Thanks to the Memelords (you know who you are) for their support, as well as all the other overclockers I've interacted with over the years. Now that The PSC Report is done, I can officially retire

Thanks HWBOT for the space.

[Don_Dan]

PSChD awarded! 👨‍🎓

[TaPaKaH]

Using public results has quite a bit of survivor bias. Most bad results are never posted in public.

Also, binning PSC for voltage on air is more of an epeen thing - it means nothing for LN2 (other than filtering hopeless rejects) and hardly beats Samsung 2Gbit D / 1Gbit G for performance and ease of handling.

[TerraRaptor]

Thanks. Though i think some of those 1300+ 6-x-6-x scores listed in intro pages could be cold bbse (not necessarily psc).

[Luumi]

We need similar on Elpida Hypers too. Sadly the report doesn't include my new ADATA result .

[SolidStateAlchemy]

Thanks @redux, this is some standout research in the field of overclocking.

 

I do have some questions though, is there any way to "follow" a single dimm through all the tests? What I mean is if a dimm wound up in say the 90th percentile in on one test did it continue to remain in that cohort throughout all the tests?