PCSTATS tests DDR memory on two major CPU platforms - the AMD Athlon64 and the Intel Pentium 4 - because RAM behaves differently with each processor architecture. For instance, Intel users tend to run their memory at high speeds with high latency settings, and in general that works quite well for Intel-based computers. It would be detrimental to system performance if you were to run the same DDR memory settings on an AMD Athlon64 system, since latency plays a much larger role in system performance.

Because much of our audience is made up of enthusiasts, PCSTATS also runs overclocking tests so you can get an idea on how far the memory will go.

On both Intel and AMD test PCs, we're only interested in seeing how high we can go with the memory running 1:1, as running with other dividers puts the overclocking bottleneck elsewhere, and not with the system memory. On the Pentium 4 test system we sometimes use higher latencies in our tests, as latencies are not as important. With the AMD Athlon64 test system, the DDR RAM latency must run at 2-2-2-5, or the memory's tightest possible timings, as quick access is more important to the CPU design.

Overclocking on a Budget

TwinMOS memory has been pretty good to us in the past on occasion, but we're really not sure what to anticipate here. By default, these Twinmos Speed Premium PC3200 modules are rated to run 200 MHz with 2.5-3-3-8 memory timings; we thought we'd try and see if we could tighten things up a bit...

As usual, we first plugged the memory into the Athlon64 test system and tightened the timings to 2-2-2-5, which proved to be a mistake. The system refused to POST no matter what voltage we fed the DDR. The TwinMOS modules only functioned when we lowered the memory timings to the default SPD of 2.5-3-3-8, which is somewhat disappointing.

Starting at 200 MHz we slowly raised the clock speed of the motherboard and at 209 MHz ran into a few problems. Raising the memory voltage to 2.8V stabilized the system. In the end we were able to run the memory all the way up to 223 MHz with the default 2.5-3-3-8 memory timings. Not the greatest overclocking results we've seen, but not bad for 'value' level memory.

Considering the mild overclocking results from the AMD test system, we didn't have high expectations from the memory on the Intel test rig. As we saw before, we were not able to run the memory at the most aggressive 2-2-2-5 timings; only default SPD timings would allow our Intel test system to boot.

Raising the FSB of the motherboard in 2-3 MHz intervals, we were able to hit a top speed of 245 MHz at 2.8V. Again, it's not the highest overclock we've ever seen, but it's certainly not bad for mainstream memory.

Test system specs

PCStats Test System Specs: Athlon64 test system Pentium 4 test system Processor: AMD Athlon64 3200+ Intel Pentium 4 2.4C Clock Speed: 10 x 200 MHz = 2 GHz 9 x 223 MHz = 2.01 GHz 12 x 200 MHz = 2.4 GHz 12 x 245 MHz = 2.94 GHz Motherboards: Asus K8V DLX, K8T800 ABIT IC7-MAX3, i875P Videocard: Asus Radeon X800XT PE Asus Radeon X800XT PE Memory: 2x 512MB PDP Systems Patriot PDC1G3200+XBLK 2x 512MB Corsair TwinX3200XL PRO 2x 512MB OCZ PC3200 Platinum Limited Ed. 2x 512MB Corsair TwinX1024-4400C25PT 2x 512MB TwinMOS Speed Premium PC3200 Hard Drive: 40GB WD Special Ed 20GB WD HDD CDROM: MSI X48 CD-RW/DVD-ROM NEC 52x CD-ROM PowerSupply: Vantec Stealth 470W PC Power & Cooling 510W Software Setup WindowsXP Build 2600 VIA 4in1 4.55V Catalyst 4.11 WindowsXP Build 2600 Intel INF 5.02.1012 Catalyst 4.11 Benchmarks Winstone 2004 SiSoft Sandra 2004 PCMark04 3DMark2001SE X2: The Threat UT2003