Test Setup

Abit NF7-S nForce2: Athlon XP 2500+ (11x166: 1830MHz), 2 x 256MB, OCZ DDR PC-3700 Premier Dual Channel, MSI FX 5200, 40GB Maxtor, Windows XP SP1

Test software will be:

SiSoft Sandra 2003
PC Mark 2002 Memory
PiFast
Quake 3

We'll be presenting benchmarks at both the ram's stock speed (466MHz), as well as at the over clocked speeds, with the timings as shown earlier this page. Tests were done with the FSB and memory speed synchronous @ 200 (400DDR, 3-4-8-4), and asynchronous for 216MHz (432DDR) and up. At all FSB settings, timings are at 3-4-8-4. Comparison ram will be OCZ's PC3200 Dual Channel Platinum at 400MHz.

SiSoftware Sandra 2003

Although a synthetic benchmark, it's a popular one, freely available if you wish to make comparison benchmarks. We will be testing the memory speeds.

SiSoftware Sandra 2003 @ 400FSB

At 400FSB, the Premier is clearly outclassed by the Platinum. Understand that the Platinum is quite a bit more expensive, but already we get a good idea of where we are going.

SiSoftware Sandra 2003 @ Overclocked Speeds

Overclocking obviously helps a great deal, but if you refer to our 400FSB results, you can see that the Premier has to be running at 484MHz to fall into the same range as 400FSB Platinum ram.

PC Mark 2002 Memory

This is one synthetic benchmark that we here at VL don't exactly put a lot of emphasis on, but we're aware that many of our readers do use it.

PC Mark 2002 Memory @ 400FSB

Much as we've seen with SiSoft, at 400FSB, the Platinum is the clear-cut winner here. Let's see if the Premier can catch up as we do some overclocking.

PC Mark 2002 Memory @ Overclocked Speeds

At its rated speed, the Premier comes close to the Platinum's stock speed, but still falls short. The "0" at 484MHz is because the ram was far too unstable to complete the tests. Keep in mind that both SiSoft and PC Mark are not real world benchmarks, so let's see how it performs with some math and games.

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