Searching for the Memory Holy Grail - Part 2
by Wesley Fink on August 26, 2003 11:11 PM EST- Posted in
- Memory
We looked for the best performing memory configuration for the 865/875 motherboard in Part 1 of “Searching for the Memory Holy Grail”. In Part 2, we will benchmark the latest high-speed memory, DDR500 and DDR466, to determine how it performs on the Intel 865/875 platform.
When Part 1 was published a few weeks ago, the fastest memory that we had tested was a DDR466 module called OCZ 3700 Gold. It was the first memory we tested to pass the DDR500 mark, which represents a raw bus speed of 250. Since the Pentium 4 bus is quad-pumped, that translates to a Front Side Bus of 1000MHz or ONE GHz — a milestone in FSB speed.
Now, just a few weeks later, we have memory from five manufacturers that claim to run at DDR500. We have even seen a recent announcement from Geil of PC4200 (DDR533) memory. Intel legitimized DDR400 with the 875/865 chipsets, and that is now an official JEDEC standard. These faster memories, however, are basically built to DDR400 specifications, and then tested by their manufacturers to run at the much faster DDR500 speed. There is no official standard yet for DDR500, but all of the manufacturers seem to be using the 875/865 chipset motherboards to verify their high-speed performance. Frankly, there is no real need for DDR500 on the current fastest AMD chipsets — the nForce2 Ultra 400 and VIA KT600 — since neither the chipsets nor the Athlon CPUs have shown any capability of reaching DDR500 performance levels. While this may change with the introduction of Athlon64, the DDR500 and high-speed memory phenomenon is, for now, an Intel chipset playground — primarily related to the Intel 875/865 chipsets.
Things are organized a bit differently in our Part 2 of “Searching for the Memory Holy Grail”. We were forced to modify our testbed in order to better test the performance of the new DDR500 modules. We also added Game performance and Number Crunching benchmarks to Sandra UNBuffered Memory Test to confirm results with real-world benchmarks.
Armed with the fastest memory available from Adata, Corsair, Geil, Kingston, and OCZ, our quest is to find the best performing memory for your Canterwood (875) or Springdale (865) computer.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
77 Comments
View All Comments
Anonymous User - Thursday, August 28, 2003 - link
I am tired of setting the memory timing and bench mark all the time. Is there a program there which can tell me what kind of results I would get? Say if I can increase my CPU by 5 MHz but have to set back my memory timing a bit, which way should I go?oldfart - Thursday, August 28, 2003 - link
Here are some reviews comparing tight timings Vs loose:http://www.hardtecs4u.com/reviews/2003/ddr400_roun... (need language translator)
http://www.octools.com/index.cgi?caller=articles/c...
http://www.3dxtreme.org/Corsair_xms3700_twinx_p1.s...
Anonymous User - Thursday, August 28, 2003 - link
I think this was an extremely helpful and thorough review. There was one comparison, though, that I would find most helpful and haven't found anywhere. I'm currently debating the importance of running synchronously, and thus found the section "Does memory speed really matter in the real world" extremely interesting. However, I would have greatly preferred one additional test -- running 1066FSB at 3:2 and 5:4 with memory with tight timings (2-2-2-5), since my real debate is whether to buy PC3200 or PC3500 with tight timings and run at 5:4 or 3:2, or PC4000 with loose timings and run at 1:1. While I expect that the synchronous memory would result in better performance, I'd really like to know how much better, since PC4000 memory is expensive!Thanks,
Steve
Dennis Travis - Thursday, August 28, 2003 - link
Great Review Wes. Keep Em coming. I am not "PAID" to say this either. I wanted to. I am getting nothing for it either. Just the satisfaction of telling Wes I loved his review.Anonymous User - Thursday, August 28, 2003 - link
Great review Wesley. Nah I'm not paid to say this, I just enjoyed the review!Anonymous User - Thursday, August 28, 2003 - link
I have tested Kingston HyperX RAM at 1:1 3-4-4-8 @ DDR500, and 5:4 2-2-2-5 @ DDR400 at the same FSBs on a P4P800, with MAM Enabled and Turbo performance mode in both cases. While the 1:1 gets about 3-5% better Sandra bandwidth scores (buffered and unbuffered), SuperPI completes about 1.5% sooner at the 5:4 settings.So real-world performance may be slightly better at 5:4, but you won't win any Sandra bragging rights with it.
--MeowChow
Anonymous User - Thursday, August 28, 2003 - link
oldfart - Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - link
Wow, looks I'm not the only guy who wants to see250 FSB
1:1 3-4-4-8
5:4 2-2-2-6
type of testing. I've seen several reviews that show the lower latency ram @ 5:4 to be faster.
Part 3??
Anonymous User - Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - link
Hey Wesley,Thanks for all the good info...
Any chance you could test Various FSB's
5:4 2-2-2-5 vs the same FSB at 1:1 2.5-4-4-7
It would be great to show the readers how the new PC4000 REALLY compares to older slower low latency RAM, Mushkin PC3500 level2 would be perfect for that.
Now that would be a seriously good Anandtech caliber review. :D
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - link
#32 and #40 -Mushkin did not have a product in our hands when the review was done. In fact I completed a review of Mushkin PC3500 Level II just a couple of days ago, and compared it's performance to ALL the memory in this review at DDR400. I also tested Adata DDR450, which did not meet our requirement of running at DDR500, but DID perform well at DDR400.
The reviews should be up here shortly. The Mushkin did VERY well at DDR400 to DDR450. Mushkin is also about to release DDR500 - but they did not have a product ready in time for our review. We WILL be testing it as soon as it is available if time allows.