Overclocking Results:

4-4-4-12 5-5-5-15 memory speed: 890 MHz 1020 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

With the 4x1GB Crucial PC2-6400 DDR2 memory kit, overclocking is probably the last think on your mind. Running a stable computer is usually more important, but just ot keep this memory review in line with PCSTATS traditional memory test parameters we'll overclock the Crucial PC2-6400 DDR2 modules with both tight (4-4-4-12) and default (5-5-5-15) CAS latency timings.

From the start it was clear Crucial's PC2-6400 memory kit wasn't made for overclocking... the memory would boot with 4-4-4-12 timings, however it wouldn't properly load WindowsXP. Increasing the memory voltage to 2.0V solved that issue, and this allowed the memory to run all tests at a speed of 800 MHz.

After that, Crucial's 4x1GB kit of PC2-6400 memory was overclocked in 20 MHz increments. At 860 MHz the Crucial memory showed some instability so voltage was again increased, this time to 2.1V. In the end, with tight timings the maximum speed the 4x1GB of Crucial PC2-6400 memory could handle was 890 MHz with 4-4-4-12 timings. PCSTATS tried a few higher settings, but the stability just wasn't there.

Loosening up the memory timings to 5-5-5-15 (the default) allowed the 4x1GB of Crucial PC2-6400 memory to go a bit further in the overclocking game. With 2.1V running through the memory, it reached 1020 MHz. Anything higher and stability was compromised. We can only speculate that heat may have become an issue at this point, as the DRAM was running pretty hot at those speeds.

The relative "lack" of overclocking performance is expected, and not a factor you should consider with respect to these 4x1GB Crucial PC2-6400 memory modules. This PC2-6400 DDR2 is not designed for the overclocker. Simply put, this memory is intended for professional users who require mission critical stability.

Prelude to Benchmarks

The details of how the 4GB Crucial PC2-6400 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 PC2-6400 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. In an attempt to find a performance difference between a system with 2GB and 4GB of memory, some testing was done in Microsoft Windows Vista 64.

PCSTATS Test System Configurations

test system processor: intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Clock Speed: 9 x 266 MHz = 2.4 GHz Motherboards: Asus P5N32-E Plus (NF 650i) Videocard: MSI NX7800GTX-VT2D256E Memory: 2GB Kit Patriot PDC22G8000+XBLK 2GB Kit Corsair Twin2X1024-6400C4 2GB Kit OCZ PC2-7200 Platinum XTC SLI Ready 2GB Kit Corsair DOMINATOR Twin2X2048-9136C5D 2GB Kit Corsair DOMINATOR Twin2X2048-8888C4DF 4GB Kit Crucial PC2-6400 Hard Drive: 74GB Western Digital Raptor WD740 CDROM: AOpen Combo 52x PowerSupply: PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 510 SLI Heatsink: Intel Reference Software Setup: Microsoft WindowsXP SP2 Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64 nVIDIA Forceware NF4 9.34 nVIDIA Forceware 91.27 Benchmarks: Business Winstone 2004 Content Creation 2004 SiSoft Sandra 2007 PCMark05 3DMark05 3DMark06 Doom 3 Quake 4 FEAR