OCZ 2GB PC2-7200 SLI-Ready Edition

Since I had taken a look at the "non-NVIDIA" version of this ram before, I figured the overclocking potential would be similar. Well, the kit didn’t let me down at all; I’m quite impressed. Although I couldn’t push it up to speeds that the OCZ Flex 9200 offers, I came close to sit at 600MHz with 5-5-5-18-13 timings at 2.4v.

I need to make one thing clear though, as there seems to be a lot of confusion lately regarding what I consider to be a "max" overclock. I don’t conclude with an overclock setting unless it passes 1000% in MemTest for Windows as well as a full 3D Mark 06 run to prove that it’s fully 3D stable. In this case, I got caught up with other things while working on this review, so I allowed it to go a full 1800% to prove it’s stability.

This is a 33% overclock, which is made impressive due to the fact that it’s 100% stable.

• 400MHz (DDR2-800), 1.9v, 4-4-4-12-13
• 450MHz (DDR2-900), 2.1v, 4-4-3-12-13
• 500MHz (DDR2-1000), 2.1v, 4-4-4-12-13
• 533MHz (DDR2-1066), 2.3v, 4-4-4-12-13
• 575MHz (DDR2-1150), 2.4v, 5-5-5-18-13
• 600MHz (DDR2-1200), 2.4v, 5-5-5-18-13

Now I have to admit, higher speeds -might- be possible. The past few days have been ridiculous weather wise, so the room has hovered between 80°F – 91°F at any given time. Yes, it’s not comfortable! If 600MHz proves stable at these ambient temps, I believe with a cooler environment, slightly higher clocks will be possible. I would not expect it to go far beyond 610MHz though, unless you use more than 2.5v.

Throughout all of our benchmarks regardless of what we are reviewing, testing is done in a clean and stand-alone version of Windows XP Professional with SP2. Prior to testing, these conditions are met:

• Desktop and scrap files are cleaned up, including emptying of recycle bin.
• No virus scanner or firewall is installed in the stand-alone installation.
• The stand-alone installation drive is completely defragged using Diskeeper 2007 Professional.
• All unnecessary programs are closed, so that Windows should have no more than 15 active processes running.
• Computer has proper airflow.

The testing rig used for today’s benchmarking is as follows:

• CPU: Intel Q6600 (2.4GHz – 2.85GHz)
• Motherboard: eVGA nForce 680i (P26 BIOS)
• Memory: OCZ 2GB SLI-Ready PC2-7200
• Video: ASUS EN8800GTX 768MB
• Sound: Onboard HD Audio
• Storage: Seagate 7200.9 320GB
• Etcetera: Windows XP Professional w/ SP2
• Cooling: Corsair Nautilus 500
  
  (Products linked are to our own reviews)

Most of the results listed deal with how all of our settings scaled, although there will be direct comparisons to other kits of ram as well. You will note that I did not benchmark at all at the stock speeds. This is because the ram was able to clock far beyond stock speeds. So for the sake of congruency, I followed the same overclocking rates as previous reviews. However here, the 600MHz top overclock was used.

Sandra is always the first benchmark to come to mind when we need to do memory benchmarking. Or CPU benchmarking. Or storage benchmarking. You get the idea. It’s a superb all-around tool that we rely on quite often.

Great results, but I’m mostly pleased to see that this kit managed to break through the 6K mark.