Mushkin & Adata: 2 for the Fast-Timings Lane
by Wesley Fink on September 1, 2003 11:18 PM EST- Posted in
- Memory
The Candidates
With what we now know about 875/875 memory configurations, the ideal test with greatest performance would be 4 Double-Bank modules. To be fair in our memory comparison, we therefore asked memory vendors, at the very minimum, to supply 2 DS dimms or 4 SS modules of their fastest memory for evaluation. Mushkin supplied our requested 2 x 512MB of Double-Bank PC3500 Level II. Adata supplied just 2 SS 256MB dimms, so please keep this in mind when comparing performance. 2 SS dimms on the Intel 875 platform tests will perform slightly worse than 2 DS dimms. 4 Single-Bank dimms on the 875 are required to equal performance of 2 Double-Bank dimms.
| Memory Specifications | ||
| Adata DDR450 | Mushkin PC3500 Level II | |
| Number of Dimms & Banks | 2 SS | 2 DS |
| Dimm Size Total Memory |
256 MB 512 MB |
512 MB 1 GB |
| Rated Speed | DDR450 | DDR433 |
| Rated Timings | 2.5-4-4-8 | 2-2-2-? |
| SPD Timings | 2.5-4-4-8 | 2.5-4-4-8 |
| Rated Voltage | ? | 2.75V |
In the Intel test, with each set of memory, we tested at the following settings:
1. 800FSB/DDR400 — the highest stock speed supported on 875/865 motherboards.
2. Rated Memory Speed — the specified rating of the memory modules we were testing.
3. Highest Stable Overclock — the highest settings we could achieve with the memory being tested.
These are essentially the same memory tests performed on the 7 sets of memory in “Searching for the Memory Holy Grail — Part 2”.
In the added AMD test, with each set of memory, we tested the following settings:
1. 333FSB/DDR333 — the highest stock speed officially supported by the Barton 2500+ CPU.
2. 400FSB/DDR400 — the highest stock speed officially supported by the nForce 2 Ultra 400 chipset and AMD Athlon processors.
3. Rated Memory Speed — the specified rating of the memory modules we were testing. We made attempts to reach the rated speed of the memory modules being tested.
To test overclocked stability on both the Intel and AMD testbeds, we used a run of the very demanding Gun Metal 2 — Benchmark 2, which pushes systems with its demanding DX9 routines. To be considered stable for test purposes, Gun Metal, our Quake3 benchmark, UT2003 Demo, and Super PI had to complete without incident. Any of these 4, and in particular Super PI and Gun Metal, will crash a less-than stable memory configuration.
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Wesley Fink - Tuesday, September 2, 2003 - link
MUSHKIN PC3500 LEVEL II AT FSB1000, 5:4 (DDR400, 2-2-2-5)We ran 1000FSB (500) at 5:4 with Mushkin PC3500 Level II at CAS 2-2-2-5. The testbed and ALL hardware and settings were the same as this review except for FSB/Ratio. Results are:
Sandra UNBuffered - 2964/2959 or avg. 2962
Sandra Buffered (Standard) ? 5470/5468 or avg. 5469
Quake 3 ? 393.7fps
UT2003 ? Flyby: 241.84
Botmatch: 87.66
SuperPI (2M places) ? 105s
Write these numbers down and compare them to DDR400 on page 8&9 and DDR500 in Part 2 Page 14 (500FSB/DDR500) charts. You will see that 5:4 2-2-2-5 is very close to the performance of the DDR500.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 2, 2003 - link
Oops... I have to take my last comment back. :(I have read through the whole article, and I dont see 250 FSB 1:1 3-4-4-8 vs 5:4 2-2-2-5 (200fsb vs. 250fsb ram speed) If they arent both tested together at the same CPU speed and FSB, only with the mem speed and timings change, its not perfect... But still a good review anyhow. :D
Retrospooty
Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 2, 2003 - link
Awesome review Wes,You took user feedback from the last review and tested your ram in a way NO OTHER REVIEWER HAS DONE SO FAR !!!! The right way.
Well done my friend, well done.
Retrospooty
Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 2, 2003 - link
Black is cool!the mushkin PC3500 Level II is the perfect combination with a IC7 Max3.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 2, 2003 - link
Given your propensity (and abuse by others) for OCZ, why did'nt you include OCZ platinum 3500 which is their ultra low latency RAM in this test. I have 2x256Mb OCZ platinum PC3200 (PC3500 wasnt and still isn't available in Australia when I built my system) in an ABIT IC7-G with 2.6C CPU. I get 2-2-2-5 to 190Mhz, 2-2-3-5 to 218 MHz and up to 230MHz on looser settings. I am moderately satisfied with this but I was offered CORSAIR XMS 3200 at time of purchase and, given your comments about Rev 1.1, I perhaps regret the path I took!wicktron - Tuesday, September 2, 2003 - link
I think you need to change the titles of the graphs on this page: http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.html?i=185...to DDR400 rather than DDR500.
wicktron - Tuesday, September 2, 2003 - link
Great review Wes.