Crucial PC3200 2GB Kit

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by Matthew Harris on November 18, 2005 in Miscellaneous

Just because a memory kit is ‘value’ doesn’t mean it’s not worthy of your attention. Today we are taking a look at a fair priced 2GB kit from Crucial, which rolls in at DDR400 speeds. Let’s see how it stacks up, and see if we can squeeze any overclocking out of it.

Page 3 – Benchmarks & Conclusions


Just for laughs I decided to do a little gaming to see what difference running the ram at 250FSB with a 5:4 divider versus 267 FSB with the 5:4 divider.

First we’ll begin with the 267FSB readings:

  • Battlefield 2, Medium detail settings 1280×960, Avg: 70.383FPS – Min: 55FPS – Max: 94FPS
  • Half Life 2 Lost Coast, High detail settings, 1280×960, 2xAA 4xAF reflect world water, Avg: 32.233FPS – Min: 25FPS – Max: 49FPS
  • Delta Force Extreme, Medium detail settings, 1280X960 2xAA 4xAF, Avg: 47.717FPS – Min: 30FPS – Max: 64FPS
  • Fear MP Demo, Medium detail settings, 1280X960, Avg: 105.317FPS – Min: 54FPS – Max: 143FPS
  • Medal of Honor Pacific Theater, Medium detail settings, 1280X960, Avg: 58.600FPS – Min: 37FPS – Max: 76FPS
  • Need For Speed; Most Wanted demo, Medium detail settings, 1280×960, Avg: 49.217FPS – Min: 33FPS – Max: 63FPS

With 250FSB it comes out like so:

  • Battlefield 2, Medium detail settings 1280×960, Avg: 63.100FPS – Min: 44FPS – Max: 87FPS
  • Half Life 2 Lost Coast, High detail settings, 1280×960 2xAA 4xAF reflect world water, Avg: 38.900FPS – Min: 28FPS – Max: 57FPS
  • Delta Force Extreme, Medium detail settings, 1280X960 2xAA 4xAF, Avg: 44.717FPS – Min: 34FPS – Max: 67FPS
  • Fear MP Demo, Medium detail settings, 1280X960, Avg: 64.300FPS – Min: 29FPS – Max: 105FPS
  • Medal of Honor Pacific Theater, Medium detail settings, 1280X960, Avg: 49.933FPS – Min: 40FPS – Max: 81FPS
  • Need For Speed; Most Wanted demo, Medium detail settings, 1280×960, Avg: 51.283FPS – Min: 35FPS – Max: 67FPS

You’ll see that in most cases the average framerate suffers somewhat, although this is a cumulative effect of both the lowered FSB and lowered ram bandwidth. As much as I’d like to be able to lower the multiplier on my CPU to allow a CPU speed that is as close as possible in both cases, I’m unable to due to running the P4.

The Need For Speed; Most Wanted demo and HL2 both buck the trend, although these are probably due to inconsistencies in my gaming rather than actual impact from hardware, since in both cases I was unable to accurately duplicate what had transpired in the first test. This is what happens when you play a real game as opposed to running a static benchmark though :)

All in all, since I was previously using 512MB of ram at 1:1 with a FSB of 272, I can say that even with the lower clock speed and decreased bandwidth, the performance increase seen by having 1.5 gigs more ram to work with more than makes up for the the loss in both clockspeed and bandwidth.

This ram is great for those people that are willing to compromise bandwidth for sheer ram density per dollar, for people with older AXP systems that will be able to utilize it at it’s tighter timings and people with higher clocked P4 systems that don’t have a burning desire to overclock the living crap out of their PC’s. That said, this isn’t ram for avid overclockers that are looking to wring the maximum performance from every part since it simply isn’t designed for that. This is a no excuses value part that delivers the biggest amount of ram that you’re going get for a very reasonable price backed with a no excuses warranty from a very top notch organization.

For the value and the commitment of the company backing it I give this ram a 9/10 and an Editors Choice award.

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