GeIL Ultra-X PCSTATS Review - Maximum DDR Overclocking Tests

It's great to see how individual memory stacks up against one another under stock configuration, but we're also going to show how they stack up to each other when overclocked. The results are listed below for some of the recent memory to cross our test bench. The higher the speed, the better.

Maximum Overclocked Speeds - PCstats Results
*AMD System Results*	Timings	Max Speed	Ranking
OCZ PC3700 Gold Rev2	2-3-2-6	486 MHz
OCZ PC3200 Plat LTD Ed	2-2-2-5	480 MHz
OCZ PC3500EB Platinum	2.5-2-2-5	460 MHz
Mushkin PC3200 Special Edition	2-2-2-5	454 MHz
GeIL Ultra-X PC3200	2-2-2-5	454 MHz
Corsair TwinX3200XL	2-2-2-5	450 MHz
PMI PC4200-512DG	2-3-3-6	434 MHz
Buffalo Firestix FSX5000V	3-4-4-8	424 MHz
Corsair TwinX1024-4400PT	3-4-4-8	410 MHz
OCZ PC4000EL Gold	2.5-4-4-7	406 MHz
*Intel System Results*	Timings	Max Speed	Ranking
Corsair TwinX1024-4400PT	3-4-4-8	550 MHz
OCZ PC4200 EL	2.5-4-4-7	542 MHz
OCZ PC4000EL Gold	2.5-4-4-7	536 MHz
PMI PC4200-512DG	3-4-4-8	526 MHz
Buffalo Firestix FSX5000V	3-4-4-8	522 MHz
Corsair TwinX3200XL	2.5-3-3-7	520 MHz
GeIL PC4000 Platinum	2.5-4-4-7	520 MHz
Corsair TwinX4000PRO	3-4-4-8	520 MHz
Corsair TwinX4000	3-4-4-8	516 MHz
OCZ PC3200 Plat LTD Ed	2-2-2-5	480 MHz
GeIL Ultra-X PC3200	2-2-2-5	480 MHz
Mushkin PC3200 Special Edition	2-2-2-5	472 MHz
OCZ PC3500EB Platinum	2.5-2-2-5	460 MHz
OCZ PC3700 Gold Rev2	2.5-4-4-7	460 MHz

Despite the PC3200 clock speeds compared to some of the faster speeds here, the GeIL Ultra-X PC3200 DIMM's are using 2-2-2-5 memory timings, which makes a big difference. I'd use low latency, PC3200 memory over high speed DDR with a high latency memory any day!

High speed memory is good for showing off bandwidth, but it actually performs slower than low latency PC3200 DDR in the long run. PCstats voiced its opinion on this matter in October of last year, and it seems like the manufacturers are finally starting to respond.

All the big memory players; Corsair, Kingston, OCZ and GeIL have released new series of PC3200 low latency DDR, and I must say it is quite refreshing to play with these memory modules. Sure they don't clock quite as high as others, but overall performance is actually better thanks. That edge comes from the low latency timings of the DRAM.

At first glance these 512MB sticks of GeIL Ultra Platinum PC3200 look a little plain, but I think the thermal monitoring stickers will come in handy if you are serious about getting the system squared away. Having a nice ball park figure to run with allows users to adjust airflow for the best possible environment for the GeIL Ultra-X PC3200 memory.

From what the benchmarks have indicated, the performance of GeIL's Ultra Platinum PC3200 DDR was very good on the Athlon64 system. On that platform it was overclockable to 227 MHz with memory timings of 2-2-2-5. The Intel platform performed even better, resulting in an overclock to 240 MHz with only 2.8V, while running 2-2-2-5 memory timings!

With a retail price of $280 CDN ($220 US) for two 512MB sticks of DDR, the memory is an absolute steal! Most other 1GB dual channel memory kits retail for around $400CDN, so if you're in the market for some kick ass memory but don't want to spend a lot, make sure you check out GeIL's Ultra-X PC3200!