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Value RAM Roundup: Computing On a Budget

by Wesley Fink on April 11, 2005 4:26 PM EST
102 Comments | Add A Comment
102 Comments

OCZ PC3200 Gold: "Value BH5"

When OCZ submitted three different memories for this Value RAM roundup, we first thought it was overkill and an attempt to hijack the roundup. However, as we looked closer at the three memories and the benchmark results with all 3, it is clear that these are memories aimed at 3 different market segments. While all three meet our requirement of costing less than $200 for a Gigabyte, the PC3200 Premier is the more traditional Value RAM that will work on almost any motherboard. The second OCZ memory, PC3200 Gold, will appeal to the enthusiast - particularly those enthusiasts who foam at the mouth over OCZ VX at 3.6V.

OCZ PC3200 Gold is sold as a 1 GB kit with two 512MB DIMMs at a price of about $195. That is where the Value designation ends because this value memory is rated at 2-2-2-5 timings and uses BH5 memory chips that have miraculously risen from their memory grave. OCZ referred to PC3200 Gold as Value BH5 and tells us that they are built with currently available BH5 chips from Winbond, which are manufactured on the old BH5 dies. Those of you who may wonder why BH5 is a memory legend have only to look at our test results to see why this is the case.

Fitting the Gold name, OCZ uses gold-colored heatspreaders on the 3200 Gold. Memory chips are Winbond BH5 based on old memory dies.

Specifications

OCZ PC3200 Gold is the only memory in the Value RAM roundup to be rated at 2-2-2-5 timings.

 OCZ PC3200 Gold (DDR400) Memory Specifications
Number of DIMMs & Banks 2 DS
DIMM Size
Total Memory		 512 MB
1GB
Rated Timings 2-2-2-5 at DDR400
SPD (Auto) Timings 2-3-2-5
Rated Voltage 2.6V

The SPD is set for "auto" timings to 2-3-2-5. To achieve full 2-2-2 timings, you need to adjust memory timings in BIOS. This is the first opportunity that we have had to test BH5 with high memory voltages. The DFI nForce4 SLI has adjustments to 4.0V in BIOS, so we were able to see for ourselves if the BH5 legends were really true.

Test Results

3.4V is hardly the kind of voltages available on most motherboards - particularly those boards that might use Value RAM. To get this kind of voltage, you need a production DFI nForce4 board - Ultra at about $133 or SLI for $184 to $215. You can also achieve these voltages on many motherboards with an OCZ DDR Booster at about $40. What you can do with voltage and BH5, however, is amazing.

OCZ PC3200 Gold (DDR400) - 2 x 512Mb Double-Bank
CPU Ratio at 2.4GHz Memory
Speed		 Memory Timings
& Voltage		 Quake3
fps		 Sandra UNBuffered Sandra Standard
Buffered		 Super PI 2M places
(time in sec)		 Wolfenstein - Radar - Enemy Territory fps
12x200 400 DDR 2-2-2-6
2.6V 1T		 568.9 INT 2984
FLT 2960		 INT 6100
FLT 6095		 81 120.0
11x218 436 DDR 2-2-2-6
2.8V 1T		 580.0 INT 3053
FLT 3132		 INT 6486
FLT 6413		 81 122.3
10x240 480 DDR 2-2-2-6
3.1V 1T		 596.7 INT 3234
FLT 3241		 INT 6731
FLT 6769		 80 124.6
11x255
(2.8GHz)		 Highest CPU/Mem Performance
510 DDR		 2-2-2-7
3.4V 1T		 636.5 INT 3359
FLT 3517		 INT 7575
FLT 7493		 69 133.5
To be considered stable for test purposes, Quake3 benchmark, UT2003 Demo, Super PI, Aquamark 3, and Comanche 4 had to complete without incident. Any of these, and in particular Super PI, will crash a less-than stable memory configuration.

The original BH5 was great up to about DDR450 at decent timings. Above that, it quickly gave out of range - or at least we thought it did in those days. It appears that BH5 with voltage allows 2-2-2 timings to be maintained to levels over DDR500. Frankly, for most users searching for Value RAM, this OCZ PC3200 Gold should be considered as very good and useful to about DDR450 to DDR460, at voltages of 2.9V and lower with very good 2-2-2 to 2.5-3-2 timings. Mad overclockers can consider this an incredible bargain. Feed this value BH5 the voltage and it will deliver at 2-2-2 timings. If you have one of the DFI nForce4 boards, this is one of the memories that can show off what high memory voltage can do.

We have found Aida benchmarks to be very useful in examining read/write performance and memory latency. Aida 32 is now available as Everest Home Edition, a free download from www.lavalys.com.

OCZ PC3200 Gold (DDR400) 2x512Mb Double-Bank
Everest 1.51
CPU Ratio at 2.4GHz Memory Speed Memory Timings
& Voltage		 Everest READ
MB/s		 Everest WRITE
MB/s		 Everest Latency
ns
12x200 400 DDR 2-2-2-6
2.6V 1T		 5892 2027 45.8
11x218 436 DDR 2-2-2-6
2.8V 1T		 6275 2135 43.4
10x240 480 DDR 2-2-2-6
3.1V 1T		 6803 2323 39.5
11x255
(2.8GHz)		 Highest CPU/Mem Performance
510 DDR		 2-2-2-7
3.4V 1T		 7268 2460 37.0

Maintaining a constant CPU Speed of 2.4GHz and constant memory timings of 2-2-2, we measured the impact of increasing the Memory Speed from 200 to 240, a 20% increase. Both Memory Read and Memory Write performance increased by about 15%, while Latency improved by a similar 14%. This translated into improvement in game FPS from 4% to 5% at a constant CPU speed.

OCZ PC3200 Value Series: "Value VX" Transcend JM366D643A-50
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  • LoneWolf15 - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link

    Thanks for a good article. I usually post response for constructive criticism, but I ought to balance that out more. The Value VX OCZ RAM was particularly interesting and worth knowing about.

  • Wesley Fink - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link

    #79 - I double-checked the part number on the OCZ "Value BH5" and corrected the Part Number on page 2. Thanks for pointing this out.

  • ericeames - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link

    I belive that the idea of this roundup was good but it has some flaws:

    I dont think that getting memories directly from the manufacturer is a good idea. I know that this is how it "works" it makes the result less credible!

    The overclocking possibilities is not THAT important altough it should not be neglected.


    Compairing them with better brands was a good idea, it makes the results relative.

    /
    Eric

  • srstudios - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link

    Wesley, it seems that the part number is incorrect for the BH-5 OCZ shown on page two.

    http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/memory/ocz_e...

    ELDCGE-K for BH-5 2-2-2

    Nice article though, thanks for all the great work!

  • srstudios - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link

  • xsilver - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link

    another thing I have to clear up..... I don't mind extreme voltages used on a "performance" review but this was supposed to be a "VALUE" roundup.... so in this situation extreme voltages may not be warranted

  • xsilver - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link

    #62 wesley... you continiued analogy is flawed....
    the thing you forget to mention is that the ferrari only smokes the chevy IF and ONLY IF the racing alcohol is used (3.4v) and the racing alchohol is only available to people who buy say brand X tyres (dfi board).... so in essence you cannot separate the dfi board and the vx + bh5 ram.... they must be used together.....
    I stand by my statement that this "review" smells a bit like an advertisment for dfi and ocz

    #74
    I thought it was generally accepted that you can now get the same performance with 1:1 overclocking on loose cas3 timings as a lower mhz with tighter cas 2 timings.... so the need to push the ram to the highest mhz is unnessessary to get the best performance

  • JustAnAverageGuy - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link

    Poor Wesley.

    The crowds can never be pleased.

  • AtaStrumf - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link

    ChineseDemocracyGNR's post reminded me of one more thing that is sooooo... wrong with this article. 240MHz is nowhere near enough for 1:1 OC-ing of A64s, because unlike you, we don't have 2,4 GHz (4000+, 939, 12x multiplier) chips which cost a fortune, but rather 1,8/2,0 GHz (3000+/3200+, 939, 9x/10x multiplier) chips which cost much less. So if you do the math that is 2160/2400 MHz, which is not exacly the limit, at least not anymore, now that the 90 nm Venice chips are just around the corner.

  • AtaStrumf - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link

    I noticed that typo too Olaf van der Spek, but more importantly this very same Transcend RAM gave me quite a bit of trouble and I would not recommend it to anyone with an A64. I was getting strange errors on my ABIT KV8 K8T800Pro, A64 3200+ S754, 2x512 transend RAM combo, like consistent NERO Identity check failures after a DVD burn. Really annoying!!! There were other stuff too, but the point is after I switched to TwinMOS Twister 3700, PQI OEM 3200, Geil Value 3200, Crucial Ballistix 3200 CL2 (best RAM I tested so far), Corsair XMS 3700 (crap RAM BTW), APACER 4000 (TCCD chips; on A64 won't run with any other stick, eg. 1x512 Ballistix + 1x512 APACER, system only sees 512MB of APACER RAM; checked with many different memories) or any other memory for that matter, everything worked just fine, so there is something really strange wrong with Transcend RAM so I strongly recommend that all A64 users avoid it like a plague.

    I agree that the only good choice in this roundup was a OCZ VX Value. You shouldn't let manufacturers pick the RAM you test. Ask us what we want to see tested, we'll have plenty of ideas. The ones I'd like to see are Corsair Value (which I know is crap, I just want you to show in Anand's recent blog entry AT's much advertised backbone and prove to Corsair that you will not take their BS excuse and will still test their RAM, even if they don't want you to, because we, the readers, come first), then GEIL Value 3200 isn't all that bad, then TwinMOS Speed Premium, PQI 3200 OEM, Geil pc4000 Ultra Platinum isn't that expensive either.

    And please stop at 2,9V, because that is as high as most are willing to go, and don't test more that CAS 2.5 and 1T.
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