!!! Go Console Crazy !!!

Get your hands on one of these great consoles with selected mobile phone deals in association with the CarPhone Warehouse.

With great mobile phones to choose from including the Nokia N96 and Blackberry Storm, all at crazy deal prices, you could be celebrating christmas in style with the hottest gadgets under your tree.

All these deals are available with the handset of your choice and a Xbox 360, Wii or Sony Playstation and are delivered NEXT DAY!

OCZ DDR2 8500 Platinum Edition Dual Channel Memory Review

Written by Maxit

Article Index
OCZ DDR2 8500 Platinum Edition Dual Channel Memory Review
Page #
All Pages

Page 2 of 2

In The Labs

As always, we enlisted our big, bag, yellow memory eating machine with its watercooling Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz processor, ASUS P5 Deluxe Motherboard, ASUS 8800GTX graphics card and pair of fluffy dice. The memory performed without any problems at rated specifications.

At 2.4volts, overclocking at 5-5-5 timings proved to be particularly rewarding and surpassed the OCZ Titanium VX2 modules we recently tested at 1218MHz. Due to the way the memory strap works on the Asus P5B Delux on speeds above 400MHz FSB a reduction in performance was actually noted at 1218MHz on the memory benchmarks in Sisoft Sandra. For this reason, we backed off to 400MHz FSB and 1198MHz for the memory and hit Sisoft Sandra scores of 8096KB/s in the memory benchmark test. We could have dropped the multiplier of the processor and pushed the memory further but that would have defeated the overall advantages of running the processor at 3.6GHz. Overall system balance is far more important when overclocking.

The OCZ Platinum modules seemed to prefer being overclocked - in fact they practically begged for it. The only thing they didn't like was having the TRAS reduced from 15 which created blue screens of death no matter what voltage we pumped through them.

Moving on to tighter timings we found them to be full of suprises. At CAS 4-4-4-15 we managed a very sweet 1125MHz which catapults this kit into number position as the best DDR2 the MaXit Monsta has sampled. The very tighest timings we could manage were 4-4-4-10 at 900MHz.

Sisoft Sandra was used to measure memory performance of four different DDR2 samples - Corsair XMS2 8500, A-DATA Vitesta 8500, OCZ Titanium Alpha VX2 8000 and the OCZ 8500 Platinum Edition memory. At stock speeds and the memory strap at 1066MHz little performance difference was seen between the modules. Overclocking the system up to it's maximum saw the fantastic performance gains we'd already seen previously on the Titanium VX2 memory. The OCZ Platinum modules just pipped the OCZ Titanium VX2 to the post. Unfortunately, Corsair and A-DATA were not able to keep up in this extreme test.

We ran the Everest application from Lavalys to measure latency performance and found all the modules performed almost identically - not suprising seeing as they were all running the same SPD timings. We've found real world applications such as games to show only small performance advantages when running at 1066MHz compared to 800MHz. The real results come when you combine high processor speeds with maximum FSB and a high memory strap - in other words overclock. In the MaXit Monsta, running the 2.4GHz processor at 3.6GHz with DDR2 along for the ride at 1198 sees some whopping frame rate improvements. This is were high frequency ram shines and the OCZ Platinum modules didn't disappoint.

The ability to run the memory as high as 1198MHz on the Intel 965 chipset is about as good as it gets on this platform - a sweet spot if you like. Above 400FSB and you'll likely encounter a reduction in memory performance due to the chipset behaviour. On AMD systems the sky's the limit - if you can hit high FSB speeds this memory will love it. We shall be looking at a watercooled 680i system soon and will let you know how this memory checks out on the new NVIDIA chipset.

The Bottom Line

If you're looking to fine tune your system with the best possible PC2-8500 DDR2 on the planet, say hello to your new best memory friend. The OCZ DDR2 8500 Platinum Edition Dual Channel Memory kit is an awesome performer, stamping on all other memory in it's class. It's SLI ready and certified, comes with a lifetime warranty and over protection guarantee to 2.4volts (plus or minus 5%), looks sexier than a super model in tight jeans and just begs to be overclocked. OCZ have put the squeeze on the competition and won a place in the MaXit Monsta PC as the new champion of DDR2. For Core 2 Duo and AM2, it's the turbo charger your system needs. Pop these babies in and your ready for the big time. Ramtastic.

The OCZ DDR2 8500 Platinum Edition Dual Channel receives our Editor's Choice Gold Award

PROS

SLI Ready with EPP
Over voltage protection
Safely runs at 2.4volts
Extreme overclockability
SPD 5-5-5 at 1066MHz
Lifetime warranty
Best headspreader on the market
Great looks

CONS

... Okay it's still £200+

Special thanks to OCZ Technology for supplying this sample. For more information on their entire range of products, head on over to http://www.ocztechnology.com

Bookmark

Email This

Trackback(0)

TrackBack URI for this entry