Searching for the Memory Holy Grail - Part 2
by Wesley Fink on August 26, 2003 11:11 PM EST- Posted in
- Memory
The Candidates
With what we know now about 875/875 memory configurations, the ideal test of the fastest memory available would be four double-bank modules. However, not all memory manufacturers had DS DDR500 modules available. Therefore, to be fair in our memory comparison, we asked memory vendors, at the very minimum, to supply 2 DS DIMMs or 4 SS modules of their fastest memory for evaluation. Over several weeks, we received PC4000/DDR500 samples from Corsair, Geil, Kingston, OCZ and Adata. OCZ 3700 Gold was also included in the roundup, since it is known to perform at DDR500.
| DDR500 Memory Specifications | ||||||
| Adata PC4000 | Corsair XMS 4000 | Geil Platinum 4000 | Kingston HyperX 4000 | OCZ 4000 Copper | OCZ 3700 Gold | |
| Number of DIMMs & Banks | 2 DS | 2 DS | 2 DS | 4 SS | 2 DS | 2 DS |
| DIMM Size Total Memory | 512 MB 1 GB |
512 MB 1 GB |
512 MB 1 GB |
256 MB 1 GB |
512 MB 1 GB |
256 MB 512 MB |
| Rated Timings | 3-4-4-8 | 3-4-4-8 | 2.5-4-4-7 | 3-4-4-8 | 3-4-4-7 | 2.5-3-3-7 @DDR466 |
| Rated Voltage | ? | 2.75V | 2.6-2.95V | 2.65V | 2.7V | 2.65V @DDR466 |
With each set of DDR500 memory, we tested at the following settings:
1. 800FSB/DDR400 – the highest stock speed supported on 875/865 motherboards.To test overclocked stability, we used a run of the very demanding Gun Metal 2 — Benchmark 2, which pushes systems with its demanding DX9 routines. To be considered stable for test purposes, Gun Metal, our Quake3 benchmark, UT2003 Demo, and Super PI had to complete without incident. Any of these four, and in particular Super PI and Gun Metal, will crash a less-than stable memory configuration.
2. 1000FSB/DDR500 – the specified rating of the memory modules that we were testing.
3. Highest Stable Overclock – the highest settings that we could achieve with the memory being tested.
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Anonymous User - Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - link
Okay... So I have the kingston ram, and I pulled it out to take a look at it... it has 4 chips on each side.. does that make it double sided or does that mean it's a single sided like the one in this article?Wesley Fink - Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - link
#2 -As I said in the review "You will have to decide if the increases in performance from using faster memory are worth the cost of that speedier memory. For some, these increases will matter a great deal, while for others, they will not be worth the cost."
Anonymous User - Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - link
OCZ Rocks :-DAnonymous User - Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - link
#1, get a life, no one likes a blind haters. OCZ has proven themselves, I'm sorry your you feel your geek life has been threatened.Anyway, great review as always Wesley. Keep up the excellent work. :)
AgaBooga - Tuesday, August 26, 2003 - link
I am currently reading the first page and I saw "Quake3 Demo FOUR.dm_66" and since I was first browsing it before reading it, I think it said "Quake FOUR!" But then, I went back since I was scrolling down quickly only to see it was Quack ;) 3, hehe.Anonymous User - Tuesday, August 26, 2003 - link
You have got to be kidding me. You're going to suggest that 6fps(at most) in UT2003 is worth spending double the price on RAM?Anonymous User - Tuesday, August 26, 2003 - link
Well I'm not going to bother reading the article, but I'll take a wild guess and say OCZ was declared the winner.