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OCZ PC4000 Gold Dual Channel VX Memory Review
OCZ PC4000 Gold Dual Channel VX Memory Review - PCSTATS
While not the largest memory supplier, OCZ has definitely been a driving force when it comes to raising memory performance.
 80% Rating:   
Filed under: Memory Published:  Author: 
External Mfg. Website: OCZ Technology Jun 07 2005   C. Sun  
Home > Reviews > Memory > OCZ Technology PC4000 Gold VX

Benchmarks: UT2003, UT2004, Doom 3

Unreal Tournament 2003

Source: Epic

Unreal Tournament 2003 is the sequel to 1999's multiple 'Game of the Year' award winner. It uses the very latest Unreal Engine technology - where graphics, sound and game play are taken beyond the bleeding edge. Unreal Tournament 2003 employs the use of Vertex as well as Pixel Shaders and it's recommended that you use a DirectX 8 videocard to get the most out of the game.

UT2003 - Flyby:
640x480 FPS Ranking
2x 512MB Corsair TwinX1024-3200XL PRO (200/400) 358.08
2x 512MB Centon GEMiNi PC3200 (200/400) 358.59
2x 512MB OCZ PC4000 Gold DC VX (200/400) 358.14
2x 512MB OCZ PC4000 Gold DC VX (268/536) 375.74
UT2003 - Botmatch:
640x480 FPS Ranking
2x 512MB Corsair TwinX1024-3200XL PRO (200/400) 112.98
2x 512MB Centon GEMiNi PC3200 (200/400) 113.01
2x 512MB OCZ PC4000 Gold DC VX (200/400) 111.78
2x 512MB OCZ PC4000 Gold DC VX (268/536) 118.26

The UT2003 overclocked numbers are closer than I thought they would be, since UT2003 likes its bandwidth. As usual, the OCZ PC4000 Gold Dual Channel VX performed on par with the other modules at stock speeds.

Unreal Tournament 2004

Source: Epic

Unreal Tournament 2004 is the sequel to the highly popular UT2003 and uses the very latest Unreal Engine technology. Unreal Tournament 2004 employs the use of Vertex and Pixel Shaders and it's recommended that you use a DirectX 9 videocard if you plan to play competitively.

UT2004
dm-rankin FPS Ranking
2x 512MB Corsair TwinX1024-3200XL PRO (200/400) 130.6
2x 512MB Centon GEMiNi PC3200 (200/400) 130.5
2x 512MB OCZ PC4000 Gold DC VX (200/400) 130.5
2x 512MB OCZ PC4000 Gold DC VX (268/536) 138.04
as-convoy FPS Ranking
2x 512MB Corsair TwinX1024-3200XL PRO (200/400) 87.63
2x 512MB Centon GEMiNi PC3200 (200/400) 87.78
2x 512MB OCZ PC4000 Gold DC VX (200/400) 87.85
2x 512MB OCZ PC4000 Gold DC VX (268/536) 92.45
ctf-bridgeoffate FPS Ranking
2x 512MB Corsair TwinX1024-3200XL PRO (200/400) 181.43
2x 512MB Centon GEMiNi PC3200 (200/400) 181.67
2x 512MB OCZ PC4000 Gold DC VX (200/400) 181.55
2x 512MB OCZ PC4000 Gold DC VX (268/536) 193.17

Overclocking does give a healthy performance increase to some of the individual time demos in UT2004, showing that extra memory bandwidth does have something to offer to gamers.

Doom 3

Source: id Software

Doom 3 is the most advanced game to date. it takes advantage of the latest videocard technology and pushes the processing power of the CPU to its absolute limit. At its highest setting, Ultra quality, texture sizes pass the 500MB mark which means even tomorrow's videocards will have a hard time running everything. The frame rates in the game itself are locked at 60 fps so anything above that point is wasted. Each test is run three times with the third run being recorded.

Doom 3
LQ 640x480: FPS Ranking
2x 512MB Corsair TwinX1024-3200XL PRO (200/400) 116.5
2x 512MB Centon GEMiNi PC3200 (200/400) 116.5
2x 512MB OCZ PC4000 Gold DC VX (200/400) 116.8
2x 512MB OCZ PC4000 Gold DC VX (268/536) 124.9

Doom 3 shows a very nice performance boost due to overclocking. When viewing this benchmark, please keep in mind that only the memory is running faster than it's supposed to and everything else is at stock speeds, including the CPU!

Maximum DDR Overclocking Tests

It's great to see how individual memory stacks up against one another under stock configuration, but we're also going to show how they stack up to each other when overclocked. The results are listed below for some of the recent memory to cross our test bench. All memory was tested at its most lax timings as well as its most aggressive. In terms of best overall overclocking performance, PCStats currently gives more weight to the combination of moderately high speeds and low latencies (2-2-2-5) than high speeds at the expense of latency timings.

Maximum Overclocked Speeds - PCstats Results

Maximum Speed w/ Low Latency

Timings

Max Speed

Ranking

OCZ PC4000 Gold DC VX 2-2-2-5 536 MHz
PDP PDC1G3200+XBLK PC3200 2-2-2-5

512 MHz

Mushkin PC3200 LII V2 2-2-2-5 508 MHz
Corsair TwinX1024-4400C25PT 2-2-2-5 506 MHz
Corsair TwinX3200XL 2-2-2-5 504 MHz
Centon GEMiNi PC3200 2-2-2-5 492 MHz
Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC4000 2-2-2-5 474 MHz
Corsair Xpert Memory PC3200 2-2-2-5 442 MHz

Maximum Speed

Timings

Max Speed

Ranking

Corsair TwinX1024-4400C25PT 2.5-4-4-8 624 MHz
Mushkin PC3200 LII V2 3-4-4-8 614 MHz
PDP PDC1G3200+XBLK PC3200 3-4-4-8 610 MHz
Centon GEMiNi PC3200 3-3-3-9 604 MHz
Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC4000 3-4-4-8 594 MHz
Corsair TwinX3200XL 3-4-4-8 574 MHz
OCZ PC4000 Gold DC VX 3-4-4-8 566 MHz
Corsair Xpert Memory PC3200 2.5-3-3-6 470 MHz

The OCZ PC4000 Gold VX memory does extremely well in the maximum speed/low latency test and scores top place. Lowering memory timings does not boost maximum speed much but that's not a big deal considering how high the memory can clock with tight timings.

Conclusions on this VX-level DDR

In the world of high-end memory there are a lot of competitors for the crown and OCZ is near the top of that list. With OCZ producing memory like the PC4000 Gold Dual Channel VX, other enthusiast memory manufacturers have responded in turn. Now, you can find similar memory pretty much everywhere from everyone.

At stock speeds, the 512MB modules of OCZ PC4000 Gold Dual Channel VX performed on par with other PC3200 DDR DIMMs we've tested recently. You really can't complain about the performance of an AMD Athlon64 4000+ teamed up with a fast videocard and good memory.

Of course the OCZ PC4000 Gold Dual Channel VX's strong suit is overclocking, and boy did it kick butt. With 2-2-2-5 memory timings and a voltage of 3.5V, the memory hit an amazing 268 MHz! Loosening up the timings didn't allow us much better performance inspite of the increased speeds to 283MHz FSB.... but we also didn't try too hard since tight timings are so important for performance.

While the benchmark results were only moderately better, please keep in mind that everything else in the system was kept at pretty much stock speed. That additional 8 fps in Doom 3 and 1000MB/s bandwidth in SiSoft Sandra was all due to the excellent overclock from the memory.

With a retail price of $256 CDN ($204 US), the OCZ PC4000 Gold Dual Channel VX memory kit is an absolute steal (at least compared to what we're use to seeing for high-end memory). If you're an enthusiast itching to have the fastest system on the block, it's a pretty good bet that this set of OCZ can help you build a speed demon.

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Here are a few other articles that you might enjoy as well...

1. Centon Advanced GEMiNi PC3200 Dual-Channel Kit Review
2. Corsair Xpert TWINXP1024-3200XL DDR Memory Review
3. TwinMOS Speed Premium PC3200 DDR Review
4. PDP Systems Patriot PDC1G3200+XBLK DDR Memory Review
5. Corsair Twin2X1024-4300C3 DDR-2 Memory Review

< Previous Page © 2023 PCSTATS.com Memory Reviews...»

 

Contents of Article: OCZ Technology PC4000 Gold VX
 Pg 1.  OCZ PC4000 Gold Dual Channel VX Memory Review
 Pg 2.  Performance Tests
 Pg 3.  Benchmarks: Business Winstone 2004, SiSoft Sandra, PCMark04
 Pg 4.  Benchmarks: 3DMark2001, 3DMark05, X2: The Threat
 Pg 5.  — Benchmarks: UT2003, UT2004, Doom 3

 
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