OCZ 3500EB: The Importance of Balanced Memory Timings
by Wesley Fink on April 7, 2004 12:04 AM EST- Posted in
- Memory
Performance Comparisons
Performance of the OCZ 3500EB was compared to all of the memory recently tested in:Mushkin PC3200 2-2-2 Special: Last of a Legend
PMI DDR533: A New Name in High-Performance Memory
Samsung PC3700: DDR466 Memory for the Masses
Kingmax Hardcore Memory: Tiny BGA Reaches For Top Speed
New Memory Highs: Corsair and OCZ Introduce DDR550
OCZ PC3700 Gold Rev. 2: The Universal Soldier
OCZ 4200EL: Tops in Memory Performance
Mushkin PC4000 High Performance: DDR500 PLUS
Corsair TwinX1024-4000 PRO: Improving DDR500 Performance
Mushkin & Adata: 2 for the Fast-Timings Lane
Searching for the Memory Holy Grail - Part 2
Memory performance was compared at DDR400, DDR500 and the highest stable overclock we could achieve that would run Gun Metal 2 Benchmark 2, Quake 3, UT2003, and Super PI to 2MM places. Where the data was available, comparisons were also made at DDR433 and DDR466.
We have included memory based on Winbond BH5 chips, Mushkin 3500 Level II and OCZ 3500 Platinum Ltd, for reference in these comparisons, but neither are available for purchase in the marketplace. All discontinued products will be removed from future benchmark comparisons. Since Mushkin claims availability of Mushkin 3200 2-2-2 Special for the next 2 to 3 months, it will be included in memory benchmark comparisons until it is no longer available for purchase.
Results are compared for Quake 3, Sandra UNBufferred Memory Test, and Super PI. SiSoft Sandra 2004 reports 2 results for each memory test - an Integer value and a Float value. Results reported in our charts are the result of averaging the INT and FLOAT scores, which are normally close in value. In other words, INT and FLOAT scores were added and divided by 2 for our reported score.
We have also added additional Memory Timing and Memory Bandwidth comparisons in this review of OCZ 3500EB. Please refer to the additional test data for the 6 fastest currently AVAILABLE memories that we have tested in the performance range of 3500EB. This can be found on Page 12.
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Pumpkinierre - Sunday, April 11, 2004 - link
Still waiting for my OCZ IC7 link WesleyTrogdorJW - Thursday, April 8, 2004 - link
bldkc... Not really. Only people overclocking their CPUs to extreme highs are pushing memory at the 500+ MHz range. The fastest official speeds are still DDR400, and DDR2 will probably be necessary before we gain official support for DDR466 and/or DDR533. I'm just waiting for DDR666.... eeeevil! Oh, wait, they'll call it DDR667 to appease the Bible thumpers.On a tangent, I'm an active Christian, and I find this "fear" of 666 to be rather absurd. "The number of the beast shall be six hundred sixty-six." Yeah, and the beast is apparently some computer part... or it would be if we had a 666 MHz CPU/RAM/Bus/whatever. Okay, on with life....
bldkc - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
It wasn't long ago that we were asking the Processor Gods when they were going to catch up to the RAM Gods and use all that big bandwidth they were selling. Well here we are. Now we must pray that the Ram Gods will treat us kindly, and return the favor.Wesley Fink - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
Adul -I will include some Athlon 64 results in an upcoming A64 board review. I did check compatibility with A64, which was excellent even on VIA K8T800, which can be very picky about memory and timings. Also took a brief look at A64 performance, and found best performance timings on A64 nF3 were 2.5-2-3-9 as mentioned in the review.
RyanVM - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
And what if due to past transgressions, many (including myself) still don't trust anything OCZ puts their name on?Adul - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
Any chance to get some test results on a Athlon 64 wes?grunjee - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
Where the heck can I get some of this stuff??? Been looking and haven't been able to find any.Great review btw Wesley.
bigtoe33 - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
I have an unbuffered available on bleedinedge forum.http://www.bleedinedge.com/forum/showthread.php?t=...
this shows turbo enabled on an IC7.
Spacecomber - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
I was left wondering if you would see the same benefit from the enhanced bandwidth with Athlon Systems as you do with the Pentium 4 system that was used in the benchmarks.I've gathered that the rule of thumb is that Pentium 4s enjoy all the memory bandwidth that you can feed them, while Athlon XP systems are less bandwidth starved and do better with the lowest latencies you can run.
So, I'm wondering if this new OCZ memory will be of most benefit to people running Pentium 4 systems, especially overclocked 800MHz systems, but less (if any advantage) to Athlon users. I also wonder if there is any difference in benefits between an Athlon 64 and the regular Athlon with this memory, for that matter.
These are the kind of practical questions I'm still left with after reading the article. On the other hand, the article gets high praise for bringing this new memory to our attention.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
Pumkinierre -Our memory test bed is the Asus P4C800-E, and we have not tested EB on the Abit IC7. However, OCZ Tech Support tells us they achieve even better benchmark results with EB on the Abit IC7. I will try to provide a link to their test results on the IC7 later today.