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 PCSTATS' test bench. All memory was tested at
its most lax timings as well as its most aggressive. In terms of best overall
overclocking performance, PCStats currently gives more weight to the combination
of moderately high speeds and low latencies (2-2-2-5) than high speeds at the
expense of latency timings.
* - 2GB dual
channel kit, the rest are 1GB.
First
please keep in mind that the OCZ PC4000 Gold memory is a 2GB kit as opposed to the 1GB kits that make up
the rest of the memory modules. High capacity DIMMs are traditionally more
difficult to overclock than lower capacity memory, but overall I am quite
impressed with what OCZ was able to do with these PC4000 modules.
Get ready for 2GB of system
memory!
It's software that drives the
computer industry, and we are certainly seeing applications demand more and more
RAM with each passing revision. For example, the next revision of Windows,
called Vista, is reported to require a DirectX 9 graphics card just to run
properly!
Games like Half Life 2, Doom 3 and Battlefield 2 push
modern systems to their limits and while its usually the videocard that gets the
most stress, we are also witnessing much larger games that require a large
amount of installed system RAM. 1GB of total system memory no longer seems like
enough, and games like Battlefield 2 really drive that point home because it
uses up around 600-800MB of system resources, leaving not much else for Windows
and any miscellaneous software that might be running in the background. However,
as our benchmarks have also indicated, not all games demand 2GB of memory - or
see any benefit from it - so it pays to do a little research first.
OCZ's 2GB dual channel PC4000 Gold DDR memory kit is
already available for $431 CDN ($363 US). Sporting two 1GB
DIMMs, the DDR memory is rated to run at PC4000 speeds (250 MHz) with timings of
3-4-4-8 at a voltage of 2.8V.
During testing the memory would run fairly aggressively
with 2.5-3-3-6 timings at 200 MHz and many of the benchmarks displayed some
favorable results. We saw a decent boost in office based applications and
overall system performance also increased. The gaming benchmarks were a mixed
bag but Doom 3 benefited from the increased memory somewhat, and Battlefield 2
very significantly. Also the OCZ PC4000 Gold Edition memory had no problems with
Command Rate timing of 1T.
The OCZ PC4000 Gold Edition memory overclocked fairly well
with 3-4-4-8 memory timings and with a voltage of 2.8V, we were able to hit a
maximum speed of 253 MHz! It is not the fastest we have gone but definitely a
nice speed for 2GB of system memory.
Those of you who are starting to find your system slow
might be well served by upgrading to 2GB of system memory. Modern games like
Battlefield 2 certainly need it, and its only a matter of time before other
applications do as well.
Find out
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Newsletter today! Catch all of PCstats latest hardware reviews right
here.
Related Articles
Here are
a few other articles that you might enjoy as well...
1. Introducing FB-DIMM Memory: Birth of Serial RAM?
2. OCZ PC4800 Dual Channel Platinum Limited Edition Memory
3. Mushkin HP3200 Redline PC3200 DDR Memory Review
4. OCZ PC4000 Gold Dual Channel VX Memory Review
5. Centon Advanced GEMiNi PC3200 Dual-Channel Kit Review
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