Conclusion

Well after extensive testing what can I say! I need a beer and an aspirin. Overall, both sets of ram performed great. What really impressed me is how high each set scaled.

While I was somewhat disappointed in the OCZ 3200EL Rev2 needing such lax timings to complete benching at 265mhz, I had to take a step back and consider that a ram that can hold BH-5 like timings at 200-215mhz is very rare nowadays and the fact that it can offer the user the option of going anywhere near and even above 250mhz is really something I've never experienced. Certainly nothing our venerable BH-5 never offered the common user at reasonable voltages.

My preference though lies with the OCZ 3700 Gold Rev3 dimms! All I can say is running them is like spreading butter; you just keep wanting more. They perform great in this motherboard (MSI K8N Neo2) and I don't think many will argue that running 265mhz at cas 2.5 3:3:8 is certainly impressive. I don't think a user could go wrong with either set. The 3200EL Rev2 offers immense tune-ability while the 3700Gold Rev3 offers just flat out performance at ridiculous speeds, something I can appreciate.

I will say that many users can get higher at tight timings with the OCZ 3200EL Rev2 kit than I was able to on this particular board. Whether this is a bios issue, or a board specific issue I cannot say. I will say that my OCZ 3500EB has issues with this MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum board past 220mhz HTT, whereas on other boards I can run it to 245mhz. So I have to assume that MSI has some work yet to do on the bios, on what otherwise is a very impressive board. For a Socket 939 A64 user, I have no problem recommending either of these dual packs, with a very slight nod towards the OCZ PC3700Gold Rev3 kit. Kudos to OCZ for giving us such wonderful options!

Not too long ago, the outlook on performance ram modules was looking a bit bleak. Now with the addition of some newer revisions of ram chips being implemented by OCZ and hopefully other companies as well, we are realizing the performance we once had and then some. A little birdie has told me that Corsair plans to put out a lower latency version of PC4000 Memory with timings of Cas 2.5 3:3:8. I would think this should compete well with OCZ's modules here. Time will tell though, but competition is certainly good for the consumer and tends to push manufacturers to produce even better modules :-).



We would like to thank OCZ for sending us the modules for testing.

Questions/Comments: Forum thread