Price: £203 inc vat
Supplier: A-DATA
Manufacturer: A-DATA

The memory market has shifted firmly towards DDR2 with the latest delights from Intel and AMD demanding high performance DDR2. With speeds in excess of 1000MHz, if you want the best possible performance from your Core 2 Duo or AM2 processor, it's time to get jiggy with your memory. A-DATA supplies a huge amount of the worlds memory needs with products ranging from SD memory cards, USB 2.0 disks to range topping Extreme Edition memory for the ultimate in gaming performance. So why shell out for 1000MHz DDR2 memory instead of more wallet friendly DDR 800? A-DATA have the answer.

"When DDR2 achieves a clock frequency of 1000MHz, its data transfer bandwidth reaches 8GB/sec, which is 25% more effective than DDR2 800 (6.4GB/sec). The product can even achieve a bandwidth of 16GB/sec with the support of dual channel architecture. It also perfectly fulfills overclock users' aspiration for performance by being coupled with HT (Hypertransport) or FSB (Front Side Bus) of a speed faster than 1G/sec."

A-DATA kindly sent over a sample 2GB kit of their attractive looking Vitesta PC2-8000 DDR2 memory for the MaXit Monsta to have a sniff at. Yummy.

While changing the memory speed between 800MHz and 1067MHz  inside the BIOS resulted in only marginal performance gains, going the whole hog and overclocking the FSB, processor and memory resulted in some very impressive performance advances. Running our 2.4GHz processor at a FSB of 333MHz and the memory at 1000MHz resulted in a whopping 26 frames per second increase in our F.E.A.R tests. Okay you can't guarantee results like this unless your using high end equipment and good cooling but we have found the Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz processor very easy to overclock on stock cooling up to 300FSB without any increases in voltage. If you plan on doing this, the Vitesta Extreme Edition really comes into its own with power house performance. In fact it's so flexible you could run at 300FSB and 1000MHz, 333FSB and 1000MHz, 356FSB and 1068MHz or 400FSB and 1000MHz without fear of the memory holding you back in your overclocking attemtps.

Bottom Line

A-DATA have produced an excellent set of DDR2 modules well worthy of their Extreme Edition label. Any Intel or AMD system would benefit from the Vitesta range but the real performance advantages come with overclocking. Equip your system with Vitesta Extreme Edition 1000MHz modules and you'll be able to take full advantage of Core 2 Duo and AM2 processors at high front side bus speeds.  In games such as F.E.A.R we saw a 20+ frames per second improvement just by upping the FSB to 300 and running the memory at 1000MHz in our Core 2 Duo system. If your system can take it you'll be pleased to hear these modules have plenty in reserve and can push onto 1100+MHz at 5-5-5-15 timings. At around £200 for a 2GB dual channel kit they represent fantastic value for anybody looking for high frequency ram.


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