First up with have G.Skill’s memory modules which are rated for PC3200 at CL2 2-2-x and PC4400 at CL2.5 3-3-x on an Intel P4 setup.

They don’t come with fancy heat spreaders, but these don’t seem necessary at all as the sticks never became very hot during testing.


(click for close-up ~200kb/2500x900)

PCB design

G.Skill used Brain Power’s PCB for their modules, B6U808 to be precise:



Overclocking Experience

Using 2 memory modules the performance is severely impacted at relaxed timings. Reaching only 235Mhz, and as you can see, at that speed, performance is hardly different from running the memory at tight timings.

2 * G.Skill GSKILL F1-3200DSU2-1GBLE
Timings	FSB/CPU	Q3A	3DMark2001SE
CL2 2-2-10	211Mhz / 2215Mhz	365.4	14186
CL2.5 3-3-10	235Mhz / 2232Mhz	366.4	14186
CL3 4-4-10	<240Mhz	n/a	n/a

By removing one module from the system the performance spiked up, 290Mhz at more relaxed timings, up to 305Mhz! (That’s DDR610 for you!) with CL3. But as you can see from the performance numbers, the 15Mhz increase does not overcome the higher latency.

1 * G.Skill GSKILL F1-3200DSU2-1GBLE
Timings	FSB/CPU	Q3A	3DMark2001SE
CL2 2-2-10	211Mhz / 2215Mhz	364.5	14123
CL2.5 3-3-10	290Mhz / 2175hz	395.1	14556
CL3 4-4-10	305Mhz / 2287Mhz	389.1	14530

Using 2 sticks of G.Skill in your Socket 754 system is only advised if you want to run them at tight timings. If you’re happy with using only 1 stick, the sky’s the limit (well almost).