The Memories
OCZ VX is unique in being the only memory available that is rated at 2-2-2 timings at DDR500. The memory is based on Winbond memory chips, most likely CH5 die. The downside is that this level of performance requires a rated 3.3V of memory voltage. The only production motherboards to supply this level of voltage are the new DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR and the lower cost sister, DFI LANParty UT nF4 Ultra-D. We reviewed these motherboards in
DFI nForce4: SLI and Ultra for Mad Overclockers. We also compared the DFI nF4 SLI-DR to other nF4 SLI boards in
nForce4 SLI Roundup: Painful and Rewarding.
The other 3 memories were chosen for comparison because they were top performers in our memory tests and they were representative of a memory chip or class of memory.
The OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev.2 is our Reference test memory. It has been a consistent top performer in Athlon 64 tests and is based on Samsung TCCD chips on a Brainpower PCB. This means that performance of the OCZ should be comparable to the similarly configured G. Skill, Corsair, Mushkin, PDP Patriot, PQI and Geil TCCD, which are generally rated at DDR400, but often perform to DDR600 or higher on the Athlon 64 nF4 platform.
The Corsair TwinX1024-4400C25A is also based on Samsung TCCD and the Brainpower PCB, but it is TCCD specifically binned for high-speed performance. This memory is representative of the performance of the best TCCD rated at DDR500 to DDR550. This memory is not always capable of 2-2-2 performance at DDR400, but the mid- to high-end memory timings are usually very good for TCCD-based memory.
Our final contender is Crucial Ballistix PC3200. The Ballistix is based on Micron chips, and the performance curves are similar to the now-discontinued OCZ EB memory, which was also based on similar Micron chips. After we completed testing, we learned that DFI had been working with Crucial to improve performance of Crucial Ballistix on the DFI nF4 motherboards. Therefore, for best performance of Ballistix, make sure that you are using BIOS version 310 (March 10, 2005) or later.
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Wesley Fink - Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - link
#9 - We reran everything in this review and took nothing for granted. Both results are the result of memtest86 on different BIOS, and a different pair of Platinum Rev. 3. I would guess the later BIOS is the difference. You can easily run the test yourself to check for best bandwidth, but 6 is the recomendation with this setup.#12 & #13 - You forgot that MSI won our nF3 Gold award and was our nF3 board of choice. The MSI also shared as the nF4 winner. With so many brands being pimped, it's hard to keep up :) We like the best performance - regardless of brand.
xsilver - Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - link
"anandtech is the biggest dfi propaganda site on the web"I noticed that too.... but is it possibly due to the fact that their nf4 board is so much better than everybody else's??
just like this memory is suprisingly better than the competition
I guess what they are saying may be you are crazy to buy anything else for the same price.... however not everybody can affor a dfi nf4, 6800ultra sli + 1gb ocz vx memory
arswihart - Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - link
i should say, before they were the biggest asus propaganda site, but tons of early problems with the sli have quieted them latelyarswihart - Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - link
anandtech is the biggest dfi propaganda site on the web, where's the attention to all the other nf4 boards?bigtoe36 - Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - link
#6 there is always value VX if you don't want the warranty to 250fsb etc, you pays your money you take your choice.PhoenixOrion - Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - link
what kind of cooling on the cpu for the test config?Viper4185 - Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - link
Nice follow up article but there has to be a mistake somewhere on this page...http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=238...
First you say this...
"In the SLI roundup, we found a tRAS of 7 to be ideal for memory based on Samsung TCCD chips."
Then...
Therefore, a tRAS setting of 6 was used for testing wherever possible.
I refer you to this article...
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...
It says 7 here??? So which is best 6 or 7?
Lonyo - Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - link
It would be nice to see some overall overclocking performances, using the FX-55 to see what the highest overclock you can gain is (obviously concentrating on the top memories).ie: If the VX was using with an overclocked FX55, how would it compare at max speed other RAM and the same CPU?
Zebo - Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - link
Getting late I stutterd while typing.Zebo - Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - link
Waste money on a hyped brand name? Or save $100 or Save $100 with "Twinmos speed premium"... Your choice and google is your friend:)