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Review: Allan "Zardon" Campbell
OCZ Technologies, a company oozing quality, their latest products have been getting rave reviews the net over, with even Anandtech stating, the PC4200 is the "fastest memory available", so needless to say I had high hopes when testing out 2x256 of these modules. Hynix make the 4ns ram modules and these are quite expensive to manufacture, as some of you know most of the high end ram (that being PC4000 and PC4200) is generally based on Samsung TCC or Hynix Rev. B. As stated in other articles ive seen reviewing this memory and after my brief chat with an OCZ representative during the week the memory is given the title "universal" DDR due to its ability to run CAS2 @ 200/400mhz as well as a quite spectacular 2.5 CAS at the top rated 533mhz - ill delve into the CAS2 rating in a little while. In typical OCZ fashion the ram comes in a Dual matched module kit , has the trademark high quality OCZ copper heat spreaders and a lifetime warranty. The ram is rated CL 2.5-4-4-7 and is ULN technology (U)ltra (L)ow (N)oise shielded PCB. It is rated at 2.8 volts but in theory will handle 3 volts or more, OCZ state it will remain under warranty to 2.9 volts but as usual there is always a little extra "play" with these recommendations. That might seem like alot of voltage but bear in mind that Corsairs TwinX memory requires 2.75v to get to 250mhz and also JEDEC have stated the "default voltage" specifications for 3200 memory have altered from 2.5v to 2.6v.
"EL", basically stands for "enhanced latency", and according to the company this means the memory modules are able to run at tighter latency timings than the current JEDEC standards. Ive seen some websites claiming this memory is capable of running @ 200/400fsb at 5-2-2-2 but I was not able in my testing to do so on the Abit AN7 board, if I changed the configuration in the bios to any setting of 2 it simply would not post. I have played with several manufacturers ram and I have been unable to do this with any 4200 rated modules on this mobo so this is par for the course. Although Other manufacturers have similar rated memory, they tend to lag a little with timings of 3-4-4-8 at 533mhz.
Rather than the usual review with the 3dmarks and other overall system benchmarks, I opted to go for some more specialised and indepth ram testing programs - its also just to throw a little curveball in there. The tests also feature the usual industry standard Pcmarks and Sandra 2004 topped with a run over in Ut2003 for good measure as a system performance guideline. The systems used for the tests are primarily centered on AMD - I had borrowed a P4 system for further testing at the highest memory speeds this ram is capable of dishing out, unfortunately during early benchmarking the Asus P4C800E-Deluxe motherboard decided to die and is currently working through an RMA, so I was unable to thoroughly test it beyond the 590mhz limitations of the AMD system. All is not lost as I can state now that this memory although rated at 533mhz hit 560mhz 7-4-4-2.5 at the time of the aforementioned failure which is extremely impressive indeed. Falling back soley on the AMD test system isnt exactly what I had wanted, but nonetheless the findings are interesting. This ram is really a little overkill for most AMD based systems unless you perform a VDD mod on your motherboard and can get 260fsb or more. Luckily enough the motherboard im using for AMD testing is an Abit AN7 which hits around 245fsb/490 with rock solid stability 24/7. Purchasing ram of this quality and speed is a good future proofing process even if you cant hit those insanely high FSBs just yet. I also like to run 1:1 this gives the best performance. With the AMD system, it was a bit of a mixed bag, and the highest stable overclock was 245fsb with memory timings at a reasonably tight 2.5-3-4-6. The ram would not post at 2CAS no matter the voltage or settings, even as low as 200fsb.
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