Date: March 20, 2006 - Author: Rob Williams
Are you in the DDR2 market and want a speedy kit at a good price? The kit we are looking at today have a modest DDR2-533 stock speed and fantastic 3-3-3 timings. They also turn out to be good overclockers, making them a good value.
OCZ has been making quite the name for themselves over the past year. During that time, they released their new XTC heat spreaders and Rally thumb drive. It's evident that they are not only producing products for the every day user, but enthusiasts. They have a wide range of memory products at many varying speeds and sizes... it can be really difficult to choose if you are looking to upgrade!
There are a total of five various series for OCZ modules, and we have taken a look at many of their Gold models in the past year. As if it were a medal, the Gold series are designed to offer superb performance out of the package, with no need for overclocking. Generally speaking, they are 'value' modules, but for people to crave top performance for that speed class. One thing the Gold are not known for is their overclock ability. On the DDR1 side of things, I found that if you were to get a nice overclock out of them, you would be very lucky. As for DDR2 though, I recently took a look at their 1GB PC2-5400 modules and they overclocked nicely to PC2-6600 speeds and still retained their stability.
The question now is whether or not people are going to continue purchasing 1GB kits when new games almost demand 2GB. You could always purchase another 1GB kit to have 4 total modules to amount to 2GB, but then you are stuck with slower performance due to 2T timings. It's clear that 1GB * 2 is the way to go if you wish to have the best possible performance right now.
That being said.. the modules we are taking a look at today will be more appealing to the casual user, because the stock speed is not up to par with high-end modules. Of course, if these modules prove as overclockable as the PC2-5400 I took a look at last month, then that would make them an even better 'value'.
These sticks are clocked at PC2-4200 speeds, which equates to DDR2-533. The timings are actually quite good on these modules, being 3-3-3-12. The stock timings and speed require 1.9v, and I didn't go over 2.1v with them due to lack of active cooling. These modules have two things about them specifically that make them special:
XTC Heat spreader: XTC (Xtreme Thermal Convection) heat spreaders optimize the thermal management of memory modules by promoting greater airflow by means of micro-convection throughout what is usually the dead air space inside conventional heat spreader designs. In this manner, build-up of heat is avoided and thermal dissipation of the memory components is offloaded more efficiently through the honeycomb design. At the same time, mechanical stability is maintained.
Extended Voltage Protection: OCZ EVP (Extended Voltage Protection) is a feature that allows performance enthusiasts to use a VDIMM of 2.2V ± 5% without invalidating their OCZ Lifetime Warranty.
So in addition to the great heat spreaders, you get a lifetime warranty and the ability to pump up the volume.. err voltage to 2.2v ± 5% without invalidating it. I was unable to find out which memory chips these modules use before publishing time. Like the 512MB models, these may also use a variant of Infineon.
As like all the other OCZ modules, these ones arrived in a clear blister pack with the orange backing we've come to expect. This allows you to open the package easily, and be able to use it again in the future. The only difference between the DDR1 and DDR2 packages are that the DDR2 ones clearly denote what they are. This is to avoid some sort of confusion and doesn't force people to count pins ;)
The pictures can't really capture just how great these modules look. At first, I wasn't too impressed with the XTC heat spreaders, but I've become quite used to them and actually think they are some of the best looking spreaders out there. I can say that they look far cooler than the previous solid gold heat spreaders that were used. Whether or not the air holes aide that greatly in heat dissipation is hard to discover, but they certainly do no harm by being there.
If you look close at the modules, you will be able to see the BGA chips underneath, although the thin thermal tape and small holes disallow you to be able to read any characters on the chips to distinguish what they are.
The huge Z in the middle helps add to the looks of the modules. If it wasn't there they may actually look a bit plain, so it helps even things out.
When you pick up the modules, you will immediately notice how light they are compared to some others on the market, especially the original Gold series with their thick heat spreader. Because the heat spreaders are so light and the air holes are there, it would seem likely that even a simple fan could help greatly in keeping the modules cool.
Enough gawking over the modules... time to see how well this stuff overclocks.
These modules are meant to function at 1.9v, but I found at stock speed 1.8v was plenty. Once we started to work beyond stock speeds though, 1.9v became a necessity.
In order to distinguish a successful overclock, the settings must pass error free through test 5 and 8 of MemTest. In order to make sure the modules were not defective on arrival, 10 runs of MemTest were performed. Those tests were error free, so we were good to go with overclocking.
As you can see, I tried to retain the original timings as much as possible. The last setting was the only one were the timings had to be loosened, because my goal was to break the DDR2-700 barrier. As usual, the overclocking ability impressed me, considering OCZ stresses that these are 'value' modules. We gained an 85MHz boost while retaining a safe VDIMM.
To test out the modules, I used the usual variety of benchmarking tools:
Because I could not fit the full specs in the graph below, you can see exactly what settings were used by matching the numbers from the OC list:
I chose to use a somewhat outdated version of EVEREST because I am not happy with the results the new one spits out. Lavalys should stop changing their algorithms so often so that each version can be compared to one another. At any rate, let's get right to it.
Some nice results here. The read and latency is nothing amazing over a 1GB kit, but the write is top-notch.
The SANDRA results are better than what EVEREST spit out. The unbuffered results are superb!
Without a doubt, 267FSB and memory speed were the sweet spot here. In both tests, those settings took the top spots.
The memory bandwidth here is very good, especially the top overclocks. Getting these modules up to 3,600 would have surprised me, let alone 3,800.
These modules sure offer a lot to the consumer and the stock performance is great for what you'd expect from modules of this speed. One large benefit right off the bat is that the modules are equipped with 3-3-3-12 timings, while it's direct competitors are stuck at 4-4-4-12. One downside though, is that these specific XTC modules don't seem to be on sale anywhere. The original Gold are still well stocked, but the XTC are nowhere to be found. If you are interested in purchasing the modules reviewed here, you should expect the same performance from the Gold modules. As soon as the XTC are in stock, I will reflect it in the review.
For modules that aren't designed for overclocking, these were pushed quite nicely. They didn't OC as well as the 1GB PC2-5400 kit, but these use different chips I'm sure. The nearest competition has modules at 4-4-4 timings, so it's up to you whether the extra cash is worth tighter timings. We managed to hit DDR2-667 while retaining those 3-3-3 timings. Currently, there is no DDR2-667 modules with stock 3-3-3 timings, so this is a nice overclock.
There is a few things to consider before picking up these modules. For around $5 more ($235), you can pick up the DDR2-667 versions of the modules, but suffer with the 4-4-4-12 timings. You could try those and hope for the best with your overclocking, or settle with the overclock ability of the ones I took a look at.
Overall, the max overclock was quite good because of the ability to retain the original timings. The primary thing that dings these modules is the price, and the ability to find them in stock. If you don't plan on overclocking, then the timings will treat you better than the competition. I am awarding these modules a well deserved 9/10 and our Editors Choice award.
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