Quake 3: Arena

It's debatable whether this benchmark still has any merit when it comes to testing video cards, but I find it useful when running our CPU and subsystem tests. Tests were run at the "Fastest" settings, at 640x480.

Unreal Tournament 2003

We used the scripts written by , which are excellent tools in testing various resolutions and detail levels. We selected the CPU test, which uses lower quality settings to offload the strain from the video card.

UT 2003 is more CPU dependent, but there are marginal increase in performance as we bump up the FSB. Quake 3, which likes fast ram, shows large gains with each increase in memory clock speed.

Final Words

Marc's two cents:

OCZ Memory sure did make is place in my heart, for overclocking, stability and performance. My expectations weren't too high, since other than the appearance, and my experiences, I always felt that it was just memory like any other. After today, no doubt, I feel otherwise.

The downside about this memory is the price. This is certainly not for the novice user on a tight budget. 200$ USD is a lot of money to put down on memory, considering you can have the same amount regular memory for a lot less. However, for serious overclocking performance and stability like this... hmm... yeah I would fork over the dough.

Hubert's two cents:

I've tested this ram for a few days before passing it over to Marc, and for the most part, I agree with his general feelings. Yes, it is expensive, but keep in mind that it is fully qualified to run in Dual Channel mode. That being said, I did run into a problem with the ABIT IS7-S. For some reason, I could not get it to run at PC3200, 2-2-3-5 at the board's "Turbo" setting. The PC would POST, but getting into Windows would not happen. Ironically, setting the memory tweak to "Street Racer", which is far more aggressive, worked just fine. Not really sure who to pin the blame on, but I've mentioned this to OCZ, and they are aware of it. If I get more info, I'll pass it on to our readers.

Pros: Excellent performance, good over clocking potential, high quality heat sink.

Cons: High price.

Bottom Line: Despite the high price, if you own, or are planning a Dual Channel motherboard purchase, we can certainly recommend this kit. The Platinum tag is certainly befitting of this memory.

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