With the maturity of a market space, comes the increasing desire to push the envelope. This is true no matter what sector of technology you focus on. Apparently, DDR2 (or PC2) memory has reached a maturity level that is allowing memory manufacturers to tweak more performance out of them.
Case in point, I am going to be putting some modules through several tests; the big deal you ask? Well these aren't your normal fare DDR2 modules, so let's look over the specifications to see where they are pushing it.
Specifications
• PC2-5400
• CL 4-2-2-8 timings
• 2.1V
• EB Platinum Mirrored Copper Heat spreader
• OCZ Lifetime PowerSwap
• EBT (Enhanced Bandwidth Technology)
• EVP to 2.2V
In the PC2 arena, these are some of the tightest timings I have seen to date. OCZ has predominantly been known for performance, add to that their Lifetime warranty and Extended Voltage Protection, you have a set of overclockers dream sticks.
Well, now that we got that out of the way, let's look at the modules that OCZ has sent over for testing. The modules come in the Platinum mirrored Heat Spreaders, and as is typical of OCZ modules these are substantial as far as weight is concerned. DDR-II memory is identified using PC2 instead of just PC in its speed rating. The EB Platinum Edition modules I am testing today are PC2-5400, you can take this as being equal to 675MHz, which is comparative to a quad pumped PC-168 SDR module (remember PC-150 is where SDR officially stopped).
Overclocking
Unfortunately, I am yet unable to clock beyond 255FSB with the ASUS P5GDC motherboard. The OCZ EB Platinum, just as its HyperX counterpart, OC'd to 250FSB without even a twitch. Of course at 1:1 timings, I am actually running the memory slower at 250FSB then stock. I selected 666MHz within the BIOS (giving me a 3:4 which is the same ratio as stock) and pushed on. The memory performed flawlessly once again. Just a note, I am still only pushing PC2-5300 speeds, plenty of headroom available. I was able to tighten the timings on the OCZ modules to 3-2-2-4 when running stock PC-4200 rate as well as overclocked 1:1 or 500MHz, an impressive CL rating to say the least.
Test Setup
ASUS P5GDC Deluxe, HIS Radeon X850XT IceQ II Turbo, WD 80GB 7200RPM SATA, Intel 520 (P4 2.8E LGA775), OCZ PowerStream 420 PSU
Memory
OCZ EB Platinum Edition (2.1V) (4-2-2-8)
Kingston HyperX PC2-5400 (1.85V) (4-4-4-10)
When you set them next to each other (the CL values) you can see several advantages going to OCZ, we will see if this plays out through the testing phase of the review.
Testing software will consist of the following:
- Our standard synthetic test to establish a baseline.
- A good indicator of CPU/Motherboard performance is PiFast version 4.3, by Xavier Gourdon. We used a computation of 10000000 digits of Pi, Chudnovsky method, 1024 K FFT, and no disk memory. Note that lower scores are better, and times are in seconds.
- Video encoding is a taxing chore, both on the Memory and the Processor. We will be encoding a 150mb AVI file to MPEG2 on our test system. For the AVI to MPEG2 I used a bit rate of 5000k/Sec, as this is the midrange for a DVD, which is typically between 1000k/Sec to 10,000k/Sec. I used a frame size of 720x480 (DVD Std) and 16:9 NTSC. Note that lower scores are better.
Quake 3 - While it's old and moldy, it still has some value as a system level benchmark.
SiSoft Sandra 2005
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 at stock 2.8GHz speeds as well as 3.5GHz OC'd
The EB Platinum Edition holds a distinct advantage here and outperforms the HyperX, by a fair margin. Once overclocked, the HyperX modules appear to take a little more advantage of the increased FSB, however, the EB Platinum Edition modules still win outright.
PiFast
A good indicator of CPU/Motherboard performance is PiFast version 4.3, by Xavier Gourdon. We used a computation of 10000000 digits of Pi, Chudnovsky method, 1024 K FFT, and no disk memory. Note that lower scores are better, and times are in seconds.
Time in Seconds, lower is better
The OCZ EB Platinum Edition once again outperforms the HyperX modules. This really shouldn't be a surprise, the CL timings on the OCZ memory is tighter than that of the HyperX, and probably the difference in this scenario. Once again, when overclocked, the HyperX gains some ground, but not enough to overtake.
TMPGEnc MPEG Encoding
Video encoding is a taxing chore, both on the Memory and the Processor. We will be encoding a 150mb AVI file to MPEG2. For the AVI to MPEG2 I used a bit rate of 5000k/Sec, as this is the midrange for a DVD, which is typically between 1000k/Sec to 10,000k/Sec. I used a frame size of 720x480 (DVD Std) and 16:9 NTSC. Note that lower scores are better.
Time in Minutes:Seconds, lower is better
In this test scenario the two pair of sticks are matched, 3 runs and every time but one (one second difference going to the EB Platinum Edition), they matched. Overclocking changed very little, except to give the HyperX modules their first all out win.
Quake III
Quake 3 is a great game to test memory with, if you drop the resolution down to 640x480 and min detail, you are forcing the CPU / memory to handle the lions share, especially when matched to an X850XT graphics card.
Frames per second, higher is better
The OCZ memory once again outperformed the Kingston at stock speeds, barely. Overclocking did little to change this, as the Kingston modules gained, but minimally.
Final Words
It appears as though DDR2 memory is becoming more and more mainstream. It also appears , with its EB Platinum Edition, is serious about staking the claim of performance in this arena. With CL timings that you would be hard pressed to match, especially at PC2-5400 speeds, looks like the stake is driven deep.
Pros: 667MHz memory for plenty of headroom, 2.1V DDR2 with EVP warranted to 2.2V, Life Time warranty, Good Looking Heat Spreaders (watch out for fingerprints on them)
Cons: Have not been able to hit the top end of this memory yet (is that a con?), Cost (not extreme in the market place, but above middle of the road)
Bottom Line : Performance and are becoming synonymous, the EB Platinum Edition does not disappoint. Good looks and head room you can't even touch yet. Whether at stock or overclocked, the will not disappoint you.
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