Top of the line memory like all high quality components is highly expensive. A lot of readers often e-mail me to ask "Colin, is it really necessary to purchase the high end stuff to run at high FSB's?" My answer has always been, yes and no. Now take for instance the KingMAX PC3200 memory we are looking at today, it's readily available and quite inexpensive for DDR400/PC3200 memory. With a street price of $130 CDN ($70 US) for 256MB, it's about $60 CDN cheaper then Corsair's XMS3200 CAS 2. It's even $40 less expensive then bargain barrel OCZ PC3200 DDR memory. KingMAX DDR is very friendly towards the wallet, but the big question is how well does it perform?

KingMAX distinguish themselves from other manufacturers by using BGA DRAM on their memory modules. They little BGA chips look different, and can actually help the silicon run a little cooler then regular TSOP-II based memory. This stick of KingMAX DDR400 DRAM comes equipped with 5ns DRAM timing which suggests it should be able to do 200 MHz FSB (1000 MHz / 5 =200 MHz).

The chips have a code of KDL684T4AA on them. Usually I don't mention the markings on the DRAM, but if you remember from our KingMAX DDR333 review the DRAM was also rated at 5ns and the DRAM markings were KDL684T4A2A. In that review we were only able to get the memory to 179 MHz FSB. We are hoping for some better luck this time around.

To test out the overclockability of the Kingmax DDR400 I plugged the memory module into the first DIMM slot of the Epox 8K5A2+ and booted into WindowsXP with everything at stock speed. The BIOS was set to use the most aggressive memory timings. Unfortunately, while running the first round of 3DMark tests the system would crash back to desktop. Things weren't getting off to a good start. In fact, I had to increase the voltage to 2.7V to get the the memory to run stable just at stock speeds!

Anyways, I started to increase the FSB and at 170 MHz FSB I hit another snag, the system would BSOD while loading WindowsXP. Increasing the voltage further still to 2.8V seemed to fix the problem. At 175 MHz FSB I had to increase the voltage yet again, this time to 2.9V in order to keep everything stable.

At any speeds higher than 180 MHz FSB the system would simply BSOD everywhere, and attempts at increasing the voltage just seemed to exacerbate the problem!

Just for fun, I set the memory timings to SPD and started to increase the FSB alone. With SPD settings I was only able to hit 185 MHz FSB while using a voltage of 2.9V!

pcstats test system specs:
computer hardware:
processor:	amd athlonxp 2000+
clock speed:	12.5 x 133 mhz = 1.66 ghz 9.5 x 180 mhz = 1.71 ghz
motherboards:	epox 8k5a2+
chipset:	via kt333
videocard:	msi geforce4 ti4600
memory:	256mb crucial pc2700 256mb kingmax pc3200
hard drive:	40gb samsung sp4004h
cdrom:	nec 52x cd-rom
floppy:	panasonic 1.44mb floppy drive
heatsink:	thermalright sk-6 w/40cfm ys tech
powersupply:	antec 400w psu
software setup	windowsxp build 2600 via 4in1 4.42v detonatorxp 30.82
benchmarks	sisoft sandra 2002 pro pcmark2002 3dmark2001 se quake iii arena

we usually benchmark with ut2003 however we were not able to get it to run properly in this case above 150 mhz fsb.

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