Geil PC3200 Ultra X: High Speed & Record Bandwidth
by Wesley Fink on August 20, 2004 12:04 AM EST- Posted in
- Memory
Performance Test Configuration
We tested the Geil PC3200 Ultra X in our standard Intel Pentium 4 Memory testbed. The hardware for evaluating the Ultra X memory is the same used in our earlier reviews of DDR400 and faster Memory.
All test conditions were as close as possible to those used in our earlier memory reviews. We have also eliminated from our charts any memory that has been discontinued, including Winbond BH5 and BH6 versions from several vendors and earlier versions of several current memory products.
| INTEL 875P Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz (800MHz FSB) |
| RAM: | 2 x 512MB Geil PC3200 Ultra X (DS) 2 x 512MB Crucial Ballistix PC3200 (DS) 2 x 512MB Kingston HyperX PC3200 L-L (DS) 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3200 Level II V2 (DS) 2 x 512MB OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 (DS) 2 x 512MB Corsair 3200XL PRO (DS) 2 x 256MB Samsung PC4000 (SS) 2 x 512MB Buffalo FireStix PC4000 (DS) 2 x 512MB Shika XRAM PC4400 (DS) 2 x 512MB OCZ PC4400 EL Gold (DS) 2 x 512MB OCZ 3700EB (DS) 2 x 512MB OCZ 3500EB (DS) 2 x 512MB Mushkin 2-2-2 Special (DS) 2 x 512MB PMI4200 Gold (DDR533 DS) 4 x 256MB Samsung PC3700 (DDR466 SS) 2 x 512MB Kingmax DDR500 Hardcore Series (DS) 2 x 512MB Kingmax DDR466 Hardcore Series (DS) 2 x 512MB Corsair XMS4400v1.1 TwinX (DS) 2 x 512MB OCZ PC4400 DC Kit (DS) 2 x 512MB OCZ PC3700 Gold Rev. 2 (DS) 2 x 512MB OCZ 4200EL(DS) 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC4000 High Performance (DS) 2 x 512MB Corsair TwinX4000 PRO (DS) 2 x 256MB Adata DDR450 (SS) 2 x 512MB Adata PC4000 (DS) 2 x 512MB Corsair PC4000 (DS) 2 x 512MB Geil PC4000 (DS) 2 x 512MB OCZ PC4000 (DS) |
| Hard Drives: | 2 Western Digital Raptor Serial ATA 36.7GB 10,000RPM drives in an Intel ICH5R RAID configuration |
| PCI/AGP Speed: | Fixed at 33/66 |
| Bus Master Drivers: | 875P Intel INF Update v5.00.1012, SATA RAID drivers installed, but IAA not installed |
| Video Card(s): | ATI 9800 PRO 128MB, 128MB aperture, 1024x768x32 |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 4.7 |
| Power Supply: | Vantec Stealth 470Watt Aluminum |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP1 |
| Motherboards: | Asus P4C800-E (875) with 1016 Release BIOS |
We have found the fastest performance on Intel 865/875 to be achieved at Cycle Time or tRAS of 5, or the fastest tRAS setting that is stable with the tested memory. Intel platform benchmarks were therefore run with the fastest stable tRAS timings we could achieve with the Geil Ultra X.
Test Settings
We ran our standard suite of memory performance benchmarks. The following settings were tested with the Geil DDR400 2-2-2 memories:
- 800FSB/DDR400 - the highest stock speed supported on 875/865 and K8T800/nF3/SiS755 motherboards
- 866FSB/DDR433 - a speed rating we have used in testing other lo-latency DDR400 memory
- 933FSB/DDR466 - another speed rating we have used in testing low-latency memory
- 1000FSB/DDR500 - a standard memory speed used in testing other high-speed memory
- 1066FSB/DDR533 - only two DDR400 2-2-2 memories reached this memory speed and results from those tests are included for comparison
- Highest Stable Overclock - the highest settings we could achieve with this memory and other memory we have tested
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qquizz - Friday, August 20, 2004 - link
excellent read thanks Anandtech for the useful infoAvalon - Friday, August 20, 2004 - link
Forgot to mention it was tested on an A64 rig. If you've got an AXP rig, lower latency might mean more. I should go test it out...Anyway, great article Wes! It's good to see Geil come out near the top. They make some great memory and are very under-recognized sometimes.
Avalon - Friday, August 20, 2004 - link
I forget where I saw it, but I did see latency compared in a Doom 3 article. Low CAS 2 latency benefitted over CAS 2.5 by giving you roughly 2-3% more framerates. Which added up to about 1 frame. Since I can't quite remember where I found it, take this with a large boulder of salt :Pciwell - Friday, August 20, 2004 - link
I am wondering the same thing as #5. It would be very interesting to see a comparison between the Value RAMs and these.Anyways, great article.
Visual - Friday, August 20, 2004 - link
This isn't really in the goals of this article, but I'm wondering, is the extra-low latency worth it at DDR400?Could you include a slow(Value RAM) memory from Kingston, Corsair or other, running at CAS 2.5 and 3 for comparison?
I really wanna know if the extra $100 or so for a low-latency ram would give me noticeable difference.
pookie69 - Friday, August 20, 2004 - link
Mr Fink!!!! Another GREAT READ!!!! I so LOVE these memory articles of yours. SO informative and give much food for thought.Thanks and keep up the gd work! ;)
Wesley Fink - Friday, August 20, 2004 - link
#1 - Corrected. We are missing our Web Editor who is taking a well-deserved vacation.#2 - You make an interesting point. I was leaning toward Samsung TCCD chips, particularly based on the poorer overclocks on Athlon 64, but I agree there are some timings at certain speeds that don't really fit. Hynix also exhibits poorer A64 overclocks compared to Intel, so it is a possibility.
Zebo - Friday, August 20, 2004 - link
Nice work Wes. To bad we don't know what chips they have...I'm leaning twards hand picked Hynix that can do 2-2-2 @ 200 by the way it mirrors it's brothers at higher bandwidth...in addtion to it's bandwidth.KingofCamelot - Friday, August 20, 2004 - link
Just a couple of things you might want to fix, on the bottom of page 2 it has the title "OCZ PC3200 Platinum Revision 2 Specifications" which should be "Geil PC3200 Ultra X Memory Specifications". Also on page 4 at 557DDR speed the Quake3 fps is missing a decimal and is listed as 43486 instead of 434.86 fps. Other than that great review, awesome looking ram man!