Athlon 64 Memory: Rewriting the Rules
by Wesley Fink on October 1, 2004 12:45 AM EST- Posted in
- Memory
Highest Memory Speed
The only time that we have really seen DDR600 performance in the past has been with a single DIMM on the Socket 754 Single-Channel DFI LANParty UT nF3-20Gb. The new Socket 939 Athlon 64 test bed will force a rethinking of what constitutes high memory speed performance. Two of the six memories, the Geil Ultra X and OCZ 3200 Platinum Rev. 2, reached DDR600 in our tests, and most others came very close to that memory milestone with highest speeds in the DDR590 to DDR600 range.
The latest memory based on Samsung TCCD chips and Micron chips is clearly performing much better on the Dual-Channel Socket 939 Athlon 64 that we expected. Both memories are faster on Athlon 64 when combined with a robust power supply. The latest Hynix DT-D5 is also performing very well on A64, with performance comparable to Intel test bed results. Since the Hynix-based 3700 Gold Rev. 3 reaches the same overclock at either 2T or 1T Command Rate, it competes very well when we look only at benchmarks run at the highest memory speed that we could achieve with each
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Zebo - Friday, October 1, 2004 - link
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=328636mkruer - Friday, October 1, 2004 - link
If you get the chance, can you please test with 2GB of PC3200? I’m sure most would love to see what type of performance hit there will be with the larger modules vs. the smaller ones. Looking at the benches so far, it looks like even buying the cheap 1GB PC3200 modules will have negligible impact on the performance as long as the times are kept relatively low (under 3cls.) And one more big IF you could test 4x512 PC3200 with lower clock timings (2-2-2-5) vs 2x1024 PC 3200 with timings of (3-3-3-8) I’m sure that for the average user they would rather blow $400 for 2GB of slow memory then $400 for 1GB of fast memory.Zebo - Friday, October 1, 2004 - link
spensive!:(p/p is horrendous for this stuff. It's too bad you don't include micron/crucial 8t in there which can also clock to 260 for half the price.
Kishkumen - Friday, October 1, 2004 - link
I've loved all of these recent memory articles. For a while now, the current state of memory in general has been the fuzziest for me. Now I'm starting to get a clearer picture of where things are at and which direction to go. I'm still nursing along my old P4 Northwood, but the A64 plunge is imminent. Nice to see that memory development is keeping up at a strong pace what with 600 MHz speeds now a strong reality.RaistlinZ - Friday, October 1, 2004 - link
Thank you for the great article! From your tests it looks like the OCZ 3200 Rev.2 is the best of the best. It performed near the top in every test and edged out the Crucial Ballistix at the highest speeds.I guess my choice for a memory upgrade is clear now. :)
klah - Friday, October 1, 2004 - link
Seems you cut something off at the end of page 9"We have asked AMD to provide some insight into why we are "...
skiboysteve - Friday, October 1, 2004 - link
excellent article, ill keep this in mind when I upgrade... im still pluggin on a TbredB @ 2.2 w/ a modded 9500nonpro