OCZ VX Memory + DFI nForce4 = DDR533 at 2-2-2
by Wesley Fink on March 4, 2005 6:45 AM EST- Posted in
- Memory
Final Words
There is some interesting creative thinking going on at OCZ these days. OCZ threw CAS out the window and brought us their EB, or Enhanced Bandwidth, memory. Now, we see the standard JEDEC voltage of 2.6V (or 2.5V from the past) thrown out the window with VX, or eXtended Voltage, memory taking its place. Breaking rules is one way of making performance gains in this industry, but it only matters if the results justify the rule-bending. EB proved to be a great performer, and now OCZ VX extends the envelope even further. If I sound excited, it is because I am. The new OCZ EL PC4000 VX Gold is a mouthful of a name and a pot-load of new performance records.Some of you may recall in the last days of BH5 memory last year that BH5 actually performed faster than the new Samsung TCCD at the exact same memory timings. This is a pattern that we have seen before, but OCZ 4000 VX Gold blows the hinges off the door of this concept. What can you say about a memory that outperforms the fastest memory that you have previously tested, except "wow"? What replaces "wow" when you realize that OCZ VX running at DDR533 outperforms the previous best running at DDR610? There are no superlatives that really do justice to this kind of performance. We are absolutely blown away with the performance of the OCZ DDR500 VX.
Across the board from DDR400 to DDR538, VX manages to perform with stability in all our benchmarks at 2-2-2-6 timings. In addition, it is faster at the same timings than any memory that we have tested so far. This is why DDR533 outperforms the top TCCD memory - even those specially binned for highest-speed performance. We would also add that we did try slower timings to see where we could go, but this memory is very interesting in its performance curves. It can do, at 2-2-2 at high voltage, essentially the same as the highest OC at lower timings at any voltage. This is another way of saying that there is absolutely no reason to run VX at any timings other than 2-2-2 - unless you simply don't have the voltage to reach 2-2-2 performance.
This brings us to the handicap with VX, and it will be a huge one for many users. VX requires high voltage to stand out from crowd - voltages not generally available on standard motherboards. You will need to start about 3.0V and extend to at least 3.5V to 3.6V to get the most from VX memory. The good news is that OCZ still provides a lifetime warranty on VX even if you run it all day long at 3.5V.
The new DFI nForce4 motherboards, both Ultra and SLI, supply voltages at stock to 4.0V. They are a very good match to VX and will take VX to whatever heights it can reach in your setup. If you have a board that you love or you're thinking of one without these extreme voltage ranges, then you can still feed VX what it needs with the OCZ DDR Booster, but you will give up a DIMM slot (translate to pair in dual-channel) to run the DDR Booster. At least there are options available, and for many enthusiasts, it will be worth the effort to find a way to use VX.
In the end, OCZ VX Gold is the best performing memory that we have tested on the Athlon 64 platform. At the same speed and same timings, it significantly outperforms any other memory that we have tested on A64. VX does not run at the fastest memory speeds that we have found in our benchmarks - quite a few memories based on Samsung TCCD or Hynix memory chips reach significantly higher speeds than the DDR538 of OCZ VX Gold. However, at DDR534 2-2-2-6 timings, no memory that we have tested outperforms VX. VX is so fast that 533 actually outperforms memory that have achieved DDR600 or more in our memory tests.
If you are a raving enthusiast, you will have to have OCZ VX memory. If you are considering a DFI nForce4 purchase, then VX should be at the top of your memory list. If you want top performance, then you should at least consider OCZ Gold VX even if it requires a DDR Booster to run. Yes, OCZ PC4000 VX Gold is that good!
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ozzimark - Tuesday, March 8, 2005 - link
#56-it's easier to just go and get a booster and retest on the neo2 that was previously the benchmark system.
renzokuken - Tuesday, March 8, 2005 - link
With most comments before this one praising this RAM as if it were the Holy Messiah Himself, my comment will surely be seen as the Devil but the truth is, this article is biased. Mr. Fink doesnt know what he's on about. He's gone and tested the VX Gold and pitted the test results against the results obtained from other RAM on a completely different board. If you would take the time to indulge me, you will see that he's simply copied and pasted the performance results of RAM taken from the MSI Neo2 (NF3) and then compared these results to what he obtained with the VX Gold on the DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR. I cannot express in any written language how inconsistent this is. If I didn't know better, I'd say OCZ handed him a nice little duffle bag sporting a $ sign after writing this article.The fact is, OF COURSE the OCZ VX Gold will look like God when you compare RAM the way Mr.Fink has done. The test bed he's used for comparison has not been consistent. So you say "Who cares, its an onboard memory controller. It shouldn't matter which board you use". Do some research and you'll see that the previous statement is rediculous. Mr. Fink tested the DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR when it was first available and had the following results with the OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev.2: "Quake 3 ran at 642FPS and SiSoft Sandra 2004 standard memory bandwidth was 8,300 MB/s. The Sandra unbuffered memory bandwidth was at 4000 MB/s" ( http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2337&am... ). A direct comparison of these results to when the SAME RAM was tested on the MSI Neo2 ( http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=231... ) will show that the board itself makes all the difference, in DFI's favor. Considering the Corsair twinx1024-4400c25 outperformed the OCZ on the MSI, I still cant understand why we havent seen this RAM tested on the DFI yet. In any case, you cannot compare the test results of the VX Gold to those obtained by other RAM on the MSI board and thus the results and conclusion of this article is invalid.
I've emailed Mr.Fink regarding the inconsistencies of his articles and have outlined what we want as consumers. Because of the nature of the DFI board, I believe anandtech should test the top 5 RAM modules using this board (including the Corsair twinx1024-4400c25) and present us with results from an unbiased, completely controlled testbed so we, as consumers, can make a more informed decision when deciding which RAM to purchase.
slashbinslashbash - Tuesday, March 8, 2005 - link
#51: Thank you.bigtoe36 - Tuesday, March 8, 2005 - link
Guys, have a look at the front page of the ORB for 3D2001, many of the top benchers use ram thats running 2-2-2 at 250+.You have to remember here the VX beat out OCZ's 3200Plat rev2 which is also TCCD based so Wesleys review while showing one product in a good light shows another in a not so good.
Nvidia have said that the NF4 and NF3 chipsets clock ram and perform equal with the same memory, i have tested both boards here and found the same, if you want proof do a few days of testing yourself, remember the memory controller is on the CPU, not the chipset ;-) so actual bandwidth will probably be identicle.
This debate has been runmbling for years, whether high fsb's high latency beat low latency at lower fsb's, we debated for ages with the 875 chipsets but the cross over for performance was a lot lower down the fsb range, and boards are now clocking ram better than they ever did. Many prefered 250fsb 5:4 with 2-2-2 over 250 1:1 with 2.5-4-3 as the benches were always higher in games running async, you needed 265fsb for the high latency 1:1 to equal the 5:4 score and then pull away.All we see now is a much more flexable memory controller which just like the P4 C Northwoods is low latency, it will perform much better with low latency ram...and as the fsb of this low latency ram increases we will need to push higher latency ram to much higher speeds to match it.
I know many overclockers who are now running old Corsair/OCZ/Kingston BH5 bought off Ebay at some incredible speeds and overclocks professing its the best ram for A64...the only difference is now OCZ are pretty much the only manufacturer to offer an alternative to buying second hand.
If you have both types of ram, run a few benches off and see for yourselves which is faster.
TCCD has its place, 2-2-2 at low voltage and incredible clocks at reasonable voltages, but for all out benching high voltage and tight latency to many is the king.
kmmatney - Tuesday, March 8, 2005 - link
"Wesley, you're claiming that I will get a 10% increase in FPS by *just* switching memories"Yeah, but that's only at 1024 x 768 (and Quake 3?). Anyone buying this sort of memory would most likely be gaming at a much higher resolution. Is there much gain at all at 1600 x 1200? A video encoding benchmark would have been nice...
Quanticles - Monday, March 7, 2005 - link
Wesley, you're claiming that I will get a 10% increase in FPS by *just* switching memories, and you dont want to go ahead and do a more thorough review? I find the results hard to believe, and it doesnt help that OCZ runs so many ads on here.I also find it hard to believe that you couldnt get a DDR booster. As far as I can tell, OCZ was the one to send you the memory, so they should also have the boosters for the test. If OCZ doesnt have DDR boosters, who does?
I dont know a better way of saying this, but I'd prefer if the advertisements stayed in the boxes at the top of the screen, and out of the content of the pages.
Wesley Fink - Monday, March 7, 2005 - link
#49 & #50 - I have updated the test configuration to include all components used in the series of memory tests. Comments have also been added to the configuration page clearly stating the configuration used and the rationale for our test methods.Ideally all memory would have been retested on the MSI or the VX would have been tested in the MSI using a DDR Booster. However, a Booster was not available, and the time for retesting on the DFI did not seem justified based on the close nF4/nf3 performance we have seen in past benchmarking.
sangyup81 - Monday, March 7, 2005 - link
Wesley, you yourself demonstrated in the SLI roundup that nf4 boards have an ideal tras at 6-8 which is clearly lower than the ideal tras of older athlon 64 boards. There is plenty of reason to think using the DFI could skew the results. Why not just put it to rest once and for all and compare results of the 2 boards keeping all other things equal? Well except the whole PCIe and AGP thing. But everything else.slashbinslashbash - Monday, March 7, 2005 - link
#46 -- BTW, "In the review we never stated that the other memory chips were tested on the DFI."That's EXACTLY what "Performance Test Configuration" says. Or are we to assume that every other AT benchmark test is similarly flawed?
slashbinslashbash - Monday, March 7, 2005 - link
Further, why not just test *one* of those other sticks of RAM on this board and with these drivers? Under the section "Performance Test Configuration" we have listed: 8 kinds of RAM, Forceware 71.80, DFI LANParty nF4. This is NOT representative of the actual numbers to come later in the review, where again, all 8 kinds of RAM are presented on the same graph, implying that the differences we se here are solely because of the RAM, and all other factors have been held constant.One thing that hasn't even been mentioned is that you ran this OCZ VX at 6 tRAS while the other numbers come from 10 tRAS. Who knows how that might have changed things on an nF4 board. I'm not saying that that changed things, but it *could* have, and we would never know from this review because this review doesn't present the results in a way that is valid.
Please, for the sake of AT's benchmarking integrity, take JUST the top-performing RAM (the Corsair?) from the earlier test. Put it through the wringer with the DFI and the newer drivers. Then re-do the charts in this review, comparing JUST the OCZ VX and the Corsair 4400C25. Then you can say "Look at this other review to get an idea of the comparison of OCZ VX vs. Geil, G.Skill, Crucial, etc. We won't compare directly, but OCZ VX crushed Corsair, which beat all the others."
We all know that your conclusion is right. We know that this OCZ VX RAM really is performing the way you claim -- way better than anything else available. The problem is with the essentially dishonest way that you're presenting those results, even if the results themselves are true. I hope that you can understand this sentiment that makes us hold on to this most important principle of benchmarking or any kind of scientific testing: hold everything else constant!