- Back to homepage
- Related articles
  Related articles

OCZ DDR2 PC2-9200 FlexXLC expands DDR2 Boundaries

Memory by thorgal @ 2007-01-23

The last few months have been rather turbulent in memory land. Several new modules have been introduced to the market, some of which are quite revolutionary. Of course, OCZ could not fall behind, and has introduced a new top end memory module with a totally new design, and we spent some quality time with it, can it beat our reigning overclocking champ?

Performance at 800Mhz DDR

Benchmark suite

As soon as we ensure full stability on all of the cas settings as shown on the previous page, we are ready to run our benchmark suite. This suite consists out of the following applications:

Sisoft S.A.N.D.R.A. 2007

Lavalys Everest 2.20

Maxon Cinebench 9.5

MadOnion/Futuremark 3D Mark 2001SE

Futuremark 3D Mark 2006

Futuremark PC Mark 2005

Superpi 1.5, Xtremesystems edition

Game 1 : 3D Realms Prey demo ; benchmark by Hardware OC

Game 2 : Monolith F.E.A.R. Multiplayer demo, built-in benchmark

Bandwidth at 800/1066Mhz settings

To measure the bandwidth and latency performance of the memory kit we use two standard applications.

First is the bandwidth for which we use SiSoftware's Sandra application. The System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant is an information and diagnostic utility which has a very handy benchmark suite, in which you can compare your system to a range of other reference systems. The Bandwidth is one of the available benchmarks:

Madshrimps (c)

In this graph, and all the following graphs, please look at the yellow bar for the PC9200 FlexXLC performance. At 800Mhz and 1066Mhz memory straps, the PC9200 is marginally slower than the other PC8000+ kits, but it's still very competitive as the differences are VERY small.

Latency at 800/1066Mhz settings

Second up is the latency test for which we use the Everest application from Lavalys.

Madshrimps (c)

When we look at latencies, the cas 3 vs. cas 4 differences are very pronounced. Bare in mind that the generic modules perform at 533Mhz, also at cas 4, so what you're seeing here is pure speed advantage, without any latency differences. The OCZ PC9200 FlexXLC is totally comparable at these speeds with the other modules from our recent high-end memory roundup.

Application benchmarks at 800Mhz

Let's have a look if the differences in bandwidth and latency are confirmed in our application benchmarks, the following graph shows the performance increase of the tested modules over the generic modules, which operate at 533Mhz. First up is the 800Mhz memory performance, where we got our OCZ PC9200 to work with 3-3-3-10 timings:

Madshrimps (c)

As you can see, performance is a mixed bag here. Our PC9200 modules got away with three wins out of 10 tests. In the other tests the memory is in the middle of the pack, without every loosing competitiveness.

Have a look at the results for the 1066Mhz memory strap on the following page ->

Comment from SuAside @ 2007/01/24

DDR2 promised us low power use & lower heat specs

now we've got DDR2 with not only huge heatsinks à la Corsair, but with stock watercooling ^^

Comment from jmke @ 2007/01/24

time for DDR3

Comment from thorgal @ 2007/01/24

Quote:

Originally Posted by SuAside

DDR2 promised us low power use & lower heat specs

now we've got DDR2 with not only huge heatsinks �* la Corsair, but with stock watercooling ^^

It's all micron's fault

No seriously, as long as there are enthusiasts, memory will be built to exceed JEDEC specs. THe same will be true for DDR3 imho.

Comment from Rutar @ 2007/01/24

I think Core 2 is to blame, if we could use lower dividers we wouldn't need such high frequency memory for overclocking,

Comment from jmke @ 2007/01/24

I can push my mainboard way beyond spec FSB wise without even reaching rated PC2-6400 speed...divider options on 975 chipset are sufficient;

Comment from SuAside @ 2007/01/24

Quote:

Originally Posted by thorgal

No seriously, as long as there are enthusiasts, memory will be built to exceed JEDEC specs. THe same will be true for DDR3 imho.

of course, but usually that's also a sign that the next generation of technology should be ready for release soon (or there'll be trouble

)

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmke

I can push my mainboard way beyond spec FSB wise without even reaching rated PC2-6400 speed...divider options on 975 chipset are sufficient;

well, solo my memory goes well over the 6400 speeds and so does the CPU, but cant get it over 400 in 1:1.

but that has nothing to do with divider options, of course.

All information and graphics contained in Madshrimps are sole property of the Madshrimps crew and may not be reproduced or copied in any manner without written permission from us.