OCZ 3500EB: The Importance of Balanced Memory Timings
by Wesley Fink on April 7, 2004 12:04 AM EST- Posted in
- Memory
Conclusion
OCZ is breaking new ground with their latest Enhanced Bandwidth series. Many readers will likely find it disturbing that their long-held beliefs that the lowest CAS is always the best performer is no longer completely true. Based on the results we see with OCZ 3500EB, you will now need to look deeper than CAS timings to evaluate memory performance.In general, 3500EB performed exactly as OCZ claimed it would in our benchmarks. It is not as fast as some current CAS 2 memory at DDR400, but its performance is very close to the best, even though EB is rated at CAS 2.5. However, by the time we reached the DDR433 to DDR466 range, 3500EB performed neck-and-neck with the best memory that we have tested, even though the CAS latency was slower. By the time we reached DDR500, OCZ 3500EB was reaching the highest bandwidth we have yet seen at DDR500, even though it ran at CAS 3 and the other fast memories were at CAS 2.5. It appears that the more you overclock 3500EB, the greater the impact of the EB optimizations.
The other surprising finding is that this DDR433 module has no problem at all running at DDR500 and providing the best performance we have measured at that frequency. In fact, we were able to reach a stable DDR510 with a memory rated at DDR433. Perhaps OCZ should use EB to also stand for Extended Bandwidth because we have never seen a DDR433 memory capable of performance at these DDR500+ speeds.
There are other memories that perform well in the same DDR400-510 range as OCZ 3500EB. At the DDR400-454 range, Mushkin 3200 2-2-2 Special performs well. Across the entire DDR400-510 range, OCZ 3700 Gold Rev.2 and Kingmax DDR500 are neck-and-neck. Also, Corsair XMS4000 PRO, Mushkin 4000 High Performance, and OCZ 4200EL perform well across the same range and reach even higher frequencies than OCZ 3500EB. However, all-in-all, there is no memory we have tested that can deliver the kind of extended and enhanced bandwidth we have found in our tests of 3500EB.
Certainly the six memories we listed are the best we have tested so far that you can still buy. OCZ 3500EB belongs in that list, if your motherboard can support the required memory voltage of about 2.8V. You should look at these 6 carefully to determine what best meets your needs. However, all 6 are also among the most expensive memories available from each memory manufacturer - except for OCZ 3500EB. OCZ has priced all EB memory at about 10% less than the other top OCZ memory products. 3500EB is also designed to be more compatible with fast performance timings on nForce2/3 and VIA AMD chipsets, so you should definitely look closely at OCZ 3500EB for an Athlon or Athlon 64 motherboard.
EB is an interesting and successful technology for OCZ. You should definitely add it to your short list if you are looking for DDR memory. For the broad range of DDR400 to DDR510, 3500EB is a remarkable performer.
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Pumpkinierre - Sunday, April 11, 2004 - link
Still waiting for my OCZ IC7 link WesleyTrogdorJW - Thursday, April 8, 2004 - link
bldkc... Not really. Only people overclocking their CPUs to extreme highs are pushing memory at the 500+ MHz range. The fastest official speeds are still DDR400, and DDR2 will probably be necessary before we gain official support for DDR466 and/or DDR533. I'm just waiting for DDR666.... eeeevil! Oh, wait, they'll call it DDR667 to appease the Bible thumpers.On a tangent, I'm an active Christian, and I find this "fear" of 666 to be rather absurd. "The number of the beast shall be six hundred sixty-six." Yeah, and the beast is apparently some computer part... or it would be if we had a 666 MHz CPU/RAM/Bus/whatever. Okay, on with life....
bldkc - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
It wasn't long ago that we were asking the Processor Gods when they were going to catch up to the RAM Gods and use all that big bandwidth they were selling. Well here we are. Now we must pray that the Ram Gods will treat us kindly, and return the favor.Wesley Fink - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
Adul -I will include some Athlon 64 results in an upcoming A64 board review. I did check compatibility with A64, which was excellent even on VIA K8T800, which can be very picky about memory and timings. Also took a brief look at A64 performance, and found best performance timings on A64 nF3 were 2.5-2-3-9 as mentioned in the review.
RyanVM - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
And what if due to past transgressions, many (including myself) still don't trust anything OCZ puts their name on?Adul - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
Any chance to get some test results on a Athlon 64 wes?grunjee - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
Where the heck can I get some of this stuff??? Been looking and haven't been able to find any.Great review btw Wesley.
bigtoe33 - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
I have an unbuffered available on bleedinedge forum.http://www.bleedinedge.com/forum/showthread.php?t=...
this shows turbo enabled on an IC7.
Spacecomber - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
I was left wondering if you would see the same benefit from the enhanced bandwidth with Athlon Systems as you do with the Pentium 4 system that was used in the benchmarks.I've gathered that the rule of thumb is that Pentium 4s enjoy all the memory bandwidth that you can feed them, while Athlon XP systems are less bandwidth starved and do better with the lowest latencies you can run.
So, I'm wondering if this new OCZ memory will be of most benefit to people running Pentium 4 systems, especially overclocked 800MHz systems, but less (if any advantage) to Athlon users. I also wonder if there is any difference in benefits between an Athlon 64 and the regular Athlon with this memory, for that matter.
These are the kind of practical questions I'm still left with after reading the article. On the other hand, the article gets high praise for bringing this new memory to our attention.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
Pumkinierre -Our memory test bed is the Asus P4C800-E, and we have not tested EB on the Abit IC7. However, OCZ Tech Support tells us they achieve even better benchmark results with EB on the Abit IC7. I will try to provide a link to their test results on the IC7 later today.