PCSTATS Test Methodology

On the socket AM2 AMD processor test bed we're only interested in seeing how high we can go with the memory running 1:1, as running with other dividers puts the overclocking bottleneck elsewhere and not with the system memory. The DDR2 RAM latency must run at its lowest possible setting, as quick access is more important to the CPU design. Just for arguments sake, we will also be conducting overclocking tests to see how high the memory will go with lax timings (5-5-5-15), although we will only benchmark the system with the tight memory timings mentioned above. Let's get started!

Overclocking the Corsair Twin2X2048-8500C5 DDR-2

Overclocking Results:

4-4-4-12 5-5-5-15 memory speed: 952 MHz 1104 MHz If you're new to Overclocking and not sure what to do, check out these two excellent Guides for some pointers: Overclocking the CPU and Memory Overclocking the Videocard

Before overclocking commenced, the CPU clock multiplier was first lowered to 10x so the AMD Athlon64 FX-62 processor will not hold the memory back. Starting at 200 MHz, the Foxconn C51XEM2AA motherboard clock speed was increased in 2-4 MHz intervals.

Even with 1.8V voltage being supplied, the Corsair Twin2X2048-8500C5 memory had absolutely no problems hitting 250 MHz right from the start. Pushing past 250MHz required a bit more voltage, so we increased power to 2.2V which is the default voltage the Corsair Twin2X2048-8500C5 is supposed to run at.

With 2.2V and the default CAS latency timings of 5-5-5-15, the Corsair Twin2X2048-8500C5 memory was able to clock all the way up to 276 MHz without incident. Anything higher and the motherboard refused to boot into WindowsXP. It's not the fault of the memory, the Foxconn nForce 590 SLI motherboard simply doesn't go any higher.

We're doing things a bit backwards here but since the Corsair Twin2X2048-8500C5 is sold as high speed, high latency memory we decided to mainly focus on how the memory performed at its intended settings. Thus the memory timings were set at 4-4-4-12...

We were fairly quick with the low latency testing and the maximum speed the Corsair Twin2X2048-8500C5 memory hit was 238 MHz. Above that mark proved to be unstable ground.

Prelude to Benchmarks

The details of how the Corsair XMS-2 PC2-8500 memory test system was configured for benchmarking, including the specific hardware, software drivers, operating system and benchmark versions are indicated below. In the second column are the general specs for the reference platforms this pair of DDR-2 memory is to be compared against. Please take a moment to look over PCSTATS test system configurations before moving on to the individual benchmark results.

PCSTATS Test System Configurations

test system reference system processor: amd Athlon64 FX-62 Clock Speed: 14 x 200 MHz = 2.8 GHz 10 x 276 MHz = 2.76 GHz Motherboards: Foxconn C51XEM2AA (NF 590 SLI) Videocard: MSI NX7800GTX-VT2D256E Memory: 2x 1024MB Corsair CM2X1024-8500C5 2x 1024MB Super Talent T800UX2GC4 2x 1024MB Patriot PDC22G8000+XBLK 2x 1024MB Corsair CM2X1024-6400C4 Hard Drive: 74GB Western Digital Raptor WD740 CDROM: AOpen Combo 52x PowerSupply: PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 510 SLI Heatsink: Athlon64 FX-62 Reference Heatsink Software Setup: Microsoft WindowsXP SP2 nVIDIA Forceware NF4 9.34 nVIDIA Forceware 91.27 Benchmarks: Business Winstone 2004 Content Creation 2004 SiSoft Sandra 2005 PCMark05 3DMark05 Doom 3 Quake 4 Battlefield 2

Office Productivity	Source: Zdnet

Business Winstone 2004 runs real applications through a series of scripted activities and uses the time a PC takes to complete these activities to produce its performance scores.

Content Creation Winstone 2004 is a system-level, application-based benchmark that measures a PC's overall performance when running top, Windows-based, 32-bit, content creation applications in Windows XP.

Office Productivity
Business Winstone 2004:	Points	Ranking
2x 1024MB Super Talent T800UX2GC4 (200/800)	36.2
2x 1024MB Patriot PDC22G800+XBLK (200/800)	36.3
2x 1024MB Corsair CM2X1024-6400C4 (200/800)	36.3
2x 1024MB Corsair CM2X1024-6400C3 (200/800)	36.8
2x 1024MB Corsair CM2X1024-8500C5 (200/800)	35.7
2x 1024MB Corsair CM2X1024-8500C5 (276/1104)	37.3
Content Creation 2004:	Points	Ranking
2x 1024MB Super Talent T800UX2GC4 (200/800)	46.3
2x 1024MB Patriot PDC22G800+XBLK (200/800)	46.7
2x 1024MB Corsair CM2X1024-6400C4 (200/800)	46.2
2x 1024MB Corsair CM2X1024-6400C3 (200/800)	47.3
2x 1024MB Corsair CM2X1024-8500C5 (200/800)	48.6
2x 1024MB Corsair CM2X1024-8500C5 (276/1104)	49.5

At stock speeds the 2GB Corsair Twin2X2048-8500C5 memory kit does not do quite as well as the other memory in Business Winstone because of its higher latency... the difference is largely marginal however. The PC2-8500 memory scores nicely at stock in Content Creation 2005.