A relative unknown in the enthusiast market space, has released an aggressive memory packaged tagged "Patriot Memory", with some very aggressive statistics to back it up. PDP Systems has been in the memory industry since 1985. In 1990, PDP Systems was one of the first capable of manufacturing the new technology. Before we dive into the current offering, let's take a quick look at what we will be testing.
Specifications
• PC2-4200 / PC2-5600
• CL 3-2-2-4 / 4-3-3-12 timings
• 2.1V
• Medium Red Heat spreader
• PDP Systems Lifetime Warranty
• Free Technical Support
In the PC2 arena, these are some pretty tight timings. Only OCZ has had tighter timings (albeit at PC2-5400 speeds) and these are the first to deliver 3-2-2-4 at PC2-4200. PDP Systems primarily has been a major player in the global technology solutions provider space; this appears to be their first foray into the enthusiast's realm of memory solutions.
Looking deeper into the makeup of these modules we see Micron Technology MT8HTF6464AY-667 chips on board. These are rated by Micron as PC2-5300 CL 5. Very interesting that PDP Systems can get PC2-5600 speeds with CL rating of 4.
Well, now that we got that out of the way, let's look at the modules that PDP Systems has sent over for testing. The modules come packaged in a nice red aluminum heatsink and therefore their weight is that of a typical Kingston HyperX module. The Patriot Memory modules I am testing today are dual speed rated at PC2-4200 (533MHz) and PC2-5600 (700MHz), which is comparative to a quad pumped PC-133 / PC-175 SDR module (remember PC-150 is where SDR officially stopped).
I will be testing the Patriot Memory modules against the previously tested OCZ Platinum PC2-5400 modules.
Overclocking
Unfortunately, I am yet unable to clock beyond 255FSB with the ASUS P5GDC motherboard. The Patriot Memory PC2-5600, just as its OCZ counterpart, overclocked to 250FSB 1:1 (500MHz) without even a twitch. I pumped the memory to 3:4 therefore pushing it to PC2-5300 speeds, once again not even an inkling that the memory was being pushed. I could not step to 750MHz, as the memory would not even POST there, no matter what I did. This has been the case since my first memory test with Kingston HyperX modules. There is room left in this memory and hopefully I am a BIOS / driver update or two away from actually tickling its ceiling
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
Patriot Memory (1.9V / 2.0V) (3-2-2-4 / 4-3-3-12)
OCZ EB Platinum Edition (2.1V) (4-2-2-8)
When you set them next to each other, you can see tighter timings for the Patriot memory at stock 533MHz (or PC2-4200). Moving into overclocked territory, OCZ gains the advantage, 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 Memory
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 overclocked.
At Stock speeds the Patriot Memory takes an initial lead. I tweaked the OCZ memory modules to the same timings of 3-2-2-4 to no avail (I couldn't tweak them any lower). The EB Platinum Edition took back the advantage once we increased the memory to 666MHz (PC2-5300) speeds.
PiFast
The OCZ EB Platinum Edition outperforms the Patriot modules across the board. This says a lot for the OCZ memory and its performance using matched CL timings against the Patriot Memory. It also says a lot for Patriot to be this close, especially in the initial foray into the enthusiast market (watch out OCZ!).
TMPGEnc MPEG Encoding
In this test scenario the two pair of sticks are in a dead heat, with OCZ edging out the Patriot modules slightly. This bodes well again for Patriot Memory since the numbers are close enough to be with in the margin of error for this test.
Quake III Arena
The OCZ memory once again outperformed the Patriot Memory at stock speeds, barely. Overclocking did little to change this, as while the Patriot modules gained it wasn't enough to overtake the numbers set down by the OCZ modules.
Final Words
with its introduction of Patriot Memory has hit the ground running. They have brought to market a module that will maintain pace with the best of them, and even treat you to a performance gain (however slight) at stock speeds. Bravo PDP Systems, Bravo, for doing your homework and not flopping on intro...
Pros: 700MHz memory for plenty of headroom, Life Time warranty, Free Technical Support if needed
Cons: Have not been able to hit the top end of this memory yet (is that a con?).
Bottom Line: has started off on the right foot, Tight timings, and great overclocking along with things you expect, such as lifetime warranty. Let's hope they continue this pursuit, as I enjoy being able to pick from more than one or two vendors when it comes to performance oriented gear.
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