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Athlon 64 Memory: Rewriting the Rules

 by Wesley Fink on October 1, 2004 12:45 AM EST
47 Comments | Add A Comment
47 Comments

Test Results: OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2

To be considered stable for test purposes, Quake3 benchmark, UT2003 Demo, Super PI, Aquamark 3, and RTCW had to complete without incident. Any of these, and in particular Super PI and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, will crash a less-than stable memory configuration.

OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev 2 (DDR466) - 2 x 512Mb Double-Bank
CPU Ratio at 2.4GHz Memory Speed Memory Timings
& Voltage		 Quake3
fps		 Sandra UNBuffered Sandra Standard
Buffered		 Super PI 2M places
(time in sec)		 Wolfenstein - Radar - Enemy Territory fps
12x200 400 DDR 2-2-2-10
2.6V 1T		 516.3 INT 2652
FLT 2805		 INT 6131
FLT 6077		 80 110.8
11x218 438 DDR 2-3-2-10
2.75V 1T		 515.6 INT 2747
FLT 2927		 INT 6482
FLT 6411		 80 110.8
10x240 480 DDR 2.5-3-3-10
2.85V 1T		 520.8 INT 2895
FLT 3123		 INT 6685
FLT 6603		 80 112.4
9x267 533 DDR 2.5-4-3-10
2.85V 1T		 525.8 INT 3022
FLT 3234		 INT 6952
FLT 6894		 79 112.7
8x300(2.4GHz) Highest Mem Speed
600 DDR		 2.5-4-3-10
2.85V 2T		 526.6 INT 2951
FLT 3123		 INT 6911
FLT 6802		 79 112.4
9x290(2.61GHz) HIGHEST
Performance
580 DDR		 2.5-4-3-10
2.85V 1T		 571.1 INT 3258
FLT 3523		 INT 7559
FLT 7474		 73 122.4

The impact of the upgraded power supply on Athlon 64 memory testing is probably most obvious in our tests of OCZ Platinum Rev. 2. This is the second TCCD memory to reach DDR600 on the A64, much better than what the DDR 557 achieved in memory testing on the Intel test bed.

As impressive as DDR600 sounds, you should remember that this was achieved with a 2T Command Rate. Actual Performance at DDR600 was therefore about the same as 1T performance at DDR533.

The most impressive performance with 3200 Platinum Rev. 2 was the ability to run at a 1T Command Rate at DDR580 - the highest 1T performance achieved in this roundup. At that speed, performance was truly exceptional, with the highest benchmark results achieved.

Test Results: Geil PC3200 Ultra X Test Results: OCZ PC3700 Gold Rev. 3
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  • saechaka - Friday, October 1, 2004 - link

    i can't seem to find a legit place to buy that ocz 3200 rev. 2. any suggestions

  • Avalon - Friday, October 1, 2004 - link

    Excellent article. It's good to know what different memories can do on the Athlon 64 platform.

  • ramclocker - Friday, October 1, 2004 - link

    14

    The psu is probably around 20A on the 12V...I know from my testing 20A doesn't cut it anymore on a high end gaming/benching rig....you also have to remember that at high speed the ram will be drawing high levels of current also and the board will draw higher current due to heat etc.

    I found the article an excellent read due to the fact it finally proved to me with reasonably tight timings running high fsb over 2-2-2 at 200 is the way to go...running 2.4gig for all tests Wes was the wise move here...great work.

  • Blappo - Friday, October 1, 2004 - link

    The computer would probably wouldn't use more than 250W. I understand that you don't want to mention the make and model. The nVidia 6800 Ultra draws most of its power through the 12V connection to the PSU, where the ATI 9800 Pro draws its power from the AGP slot. What is the max current rating on the 12V rail for the 465W PSU that you were using? I agree that a high quality PSU is needed (although not necessarily high max rating).

  • Wesley Fink - Friday, October 1, 2004 - link

    #12 - The Asus A8V is reviewed at http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2128 and compared to other 939 boards. In memory testing we use a standard test bed to minimize variables.

    #11 - The 90nm Athlon 64 tests should appear next week. We have just received 90nm 3500+ and 3000+ processors. AMD did not do a media launch on these processors, so we had to find them on the open market

    #9 and #11 - A Value RAM roundup is in the works, but it has been moved out a while because of a large number of new launches this month.

  • Deuce - Friday, October 1, 2004 - link

    It sure would be nice with tests also conducted on the Asus A8V. I'm still deciding between the two.

  • PrinceGaz - Friday, October 1, 2004 - link

    Just to follow up that comment, I suppose the DDR533/2.4GHz results are actually the most useful out of them all when it comes to comparing those particular modules. All of them were fastest (at 2.4GHz) at that speed, except for the OCZ PC3200 Plat Rev.2 which was marginally faster at 8x300 for DDR600.

    Anyway, I'm looking forward to the reviews of the desktop 90nm A64 processors, and especially finding out how well each of them overclocks.

    And also the Value Memory review you promised a few weeks ago :)

  • PrinceGaz - Friday, October 1, 2004 - link

    Although all the (admittedly premium quality)memory could reach very high speeds, that didn't have much impact on performance.

    Taking the highest clocking brand as an example, the OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev.2, from the DDR400 2-2-2 speed to the DDR534 2.5-4-3 speed which was the best result still at a CPU speed of 2.4GHz, the results were

    Quake 3: 516.3 -> 525.8
    Super PI: 80 -> 79 (lower is better)
    Wolf: 110.8 -> 112.7

    So running the memory at DDR534 instead of DDR400 provided less than 2% increase in performance. This is to be expected when you compare the real-world performance of S754 and S939. The only thing that is important is that the memory can do 1T command-rate to the maximum overclock of your A64 at default multiplier.

    I think the results on the highest memory performance page are probably misleading to some readers. It shows the Crucial Ballistix coming in at 536.5fps on Q3. Looking at the results I see that was at 9x278 for a CPU speed of 2.5GHz. Your CPU was able to reach over 2.6GHz so the performance in real world tests would have been somewhat higher with a 10x multiplier. Sandra results are irrelevant to most people.

    It would be better if you included an additional test in addition to Highest Memory Speed, and Highest Memory Performance. This would be Highest CPU Speed where the CPU is maxxed out, and the memory run at whatever multiplier gives best performance on real-world tests (ignoring Sandra). I suspect the results would be a *lot* closer.

  • AtaStrumf - Friday, October 1, 2004 - link

    Now about some value RAM tests? These modules are just too expensive for most of us.

  • Jalf - Friday, October 1, 2004 - link

    Or maybe the "average" user would rather blow $200 on 1GB memory ;)
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