Our overclocking adventures didn't start off very well which was a bit of a downer, but then again a challenge is just as fun sometimes. We were originally going to use the Abit KR7A-133RAID to test the Crucial PC2700 but we weren't able to get the RAM to run properly with the board.

At 133 MHz the memory didn't have any problem, but at 166 MHz we were not able to get the RAM to run properly with the most conservative memory timings. This might have been an Abit glitch as we even set the voltage to 2.85V in a fruitless attempt.

Because of the performance issues associated with the VIA KT333CE chipset, we were a little bit hesitant about using the 8K3A+ for these tests, but decided to go a head anyway as this is a pretty popular motherboard at the moment.

The Crucial PC2700 seemed to like the 8K3A+ much more then the ABit, and ran at 166 MHz FSB without any problems. Unfortunately our PC2700 DDR wasn't very overclocker friendly. We hit our first barrier at 170 MHz FSB; over 166MHz, but not by much.

The system would post at this speed but would blue screen when loading up Windows XP. We had to bump the memory voltage up to 2.7V for the system to run stable. With the most aggressive timings, we were able to get the Crucial PC2700 to run at 180 MHz FSB, but any higher and we would BSOD once we hit the Windows desktop.

The 8K3A+ does allow for voltages to go up to 3.2V which is nice, but it didn't help us overclock any higher. Setting the RAM by SPD allowed the Crucial PC2700 to run at 190 MHz FSB which sounds really good, but because of the relaxed memory timings the RAM didn't perform as well.

pcstats test system specs:
computer hardware:
processor:	amd athlonxp 2000+
clock speed:	10x166 mhz = 1.66 ghz 9.5x180 mhz = 1.72 ghz
motherboards:	epox 8k3a+
chipset:	via kt333ce
videocard:	nvidia geforce 4 ti4600
sound card:	n/a
network card:	n/a
memory:	256mb crucial pc2700 ddr ram
hard drive:	40gb 7200rpm maxtor d740x ultra/133
cdrom:	panasonic 48x cd-rom cr-594-b
floppy:	panasonic 1.44mb floppy drive
heatsink:	Thermalright SK-6 w/60mm Delta
PowerSupply:	Antec 400W PSU
Software Setup:	WindowsXP VIA 4in1 4.38V DetonatorXP 27.70
Benchmarks:	SiSoft Sandra 2002 Pro PCMark2002 3DMark2001 SE Quake III Arena Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Sisoft Sandra 2002 Pro	Source: Sandra

Sandra is designed to test the theoretical power of a complete system and individual components. The numbers taken though are again, purely theoretical and may not represent real world performance. Higher numbers represent better performance.