Technically speaking, Intel’s latest CPU architecture Haswell still only officially supports memory up to DDR3 1600 MHz. Anything above that is considered running beyond specifications in some way. Don’t worry though, , it’s not really considered overclocking. There are plenty of choices at 1866 MHz, and the products aren’t running out of spec at all.

Today we’re looking at a DDR3 1866 kit from Crucial, in their Ballistix Sport XT lineup. This 16GB kit is designed to run at 1866 MHz with 10-10-10-30 timings at 1.5v. We’re going to find out whether it’s worth it to run Haswell CPUs at 1866 MHz and beyond, and what kind of scaling to expect in artificial and real world benchmarks.