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SimpleTech PC2-4200 DDR2


Date
: 04/14/05 – 08:15:04 AM

Author
:

Category
: Memory

Page 1 : Introduction

Manufacturer:
SimpleTech

Price:
$241

The first on our plate for DDR2 analysis comes from
SimpleTech
. What we have are two DIMMs that are sold seperately, each 512 MB capacity and rated for PC2-4200 operation with 4-4-4-10 latency. Now, the focus of this review will not be how many frames per second or points this RAM can achieve in various benchmarks; no, instead, what I'm going to focus on today is what these DIMMs can run at.

I'll obiviously show some performance figures, but when I'm looking at memory performance I'm not expecting the difference between two brands to be all that large at the same settings. What I am interested in is what RAM can take me to those speeds and at the lowest latencies. With that said, we'll begin with a brief look at the memory on our test bench.

Page 2 : Package

Memory isn't usually too exciting from a packaging perspective. It's even less exciting when no special heatspreaders are involved, and that's the case with these value DIMMs from SimpleTech.

Those with a keen eye will notice the packaging is mislabeled for PC2-4300. A search online to find places that sell these modules also revealed that they are being sold as PC2-4300, when in fact, the stickers on each DIMM say otherwise; these are labeled as PC2-4200 4-4-4-10 modules. SimpleTech doesn't even offer any PC2-4300 modules on their web site as of the time of this writing.

Using Samsung K4T56083QF-ZCD5 chips, these are lead-free FBGA packaging, rated for normal power and 266 MHz @ 4-4-4 latency.

On paper, nothing about these modules seems impressive. Let's move on to our tests and see what we were able to run these at.

Page 3 : Testing

The tests were conducted using the following system specs:

During testing, numerous things were done to try and max these modules out. Unfortunately, while I could get these running at over 350 MHz (that's over 700 MHz effective), I was unable to keep the processor from throttling down it's FSB at such high clock speeds. Further, above a 245 FSB, the SATA controller would not recognize any drive connected to it, so IDE was used instead. On top of that, without PCI-E bus frequency locking, I was unable to use a PCI-E video card in such cases without damaging the board. This is why a PCI video card (a weak one, but all I had around) was used for non-3D testing at these higher settings.

So thems the breaks, but nevertheless these modules from SimpleTech performed incredibly well.

Rated for 4-4-4-10 at 266 MHz, I found these modules to be perfectly fine running 3-4-4-4 at 266 MHz without any stability issues. For those willing to run at lower speeds for lower latency, these chips were flexible and would go as low as 3-3-3-4 at 200 MHz frequency.

The chips scaled very well. As mentioned, I was able to take them above 350 MHz into Windows, however at an increased latency, 5-5-5-12, and increased voltage, 2.2V. Stability testing was out of the question as the processor would just throttle the FSB down as load picked up. Otherwise, 333 MHz was completely stable and at a 4-4-4-12 latency – over 25% faster than the rated speed and at nearly the same latencies. I was very impressed for what I was told is just standard, no frills memory.

The memory chips themselves only became warm and never hot during testing.

To examine the performance at these speeds, I wanted to look at the various memory bandwidths and see how much of an effect latency had. Quake 3 Arena, a popular benchmark for examining performance differences in memory was one such test used. Others included SiSoft Sandra 2005 Memory Benchmark, Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004, and Super PI.

What we see here is that although lower latency doesn't always equate to better performance, it certainly won't lower it. Applications that access memory the most will see the largest advantages to lower latencies as evidenced by Quake 3 Arena.

Page 4 : Conclusion

The memory modules tested hear from
SimpleTech
were nothing short of impressive. Anyone with a DDR2 system looking to overclock are unlikely to find that these modules will hold their performance back. Performance isn't everything however, and price is usually an issue. That is the case here as these are very expensive modules that retail for over $200 (nearly $300 at some stores) for a single 512 MB DIMM. With that said, you can find higher speced, higher capacity DIMMs from other names like Corsair and OCZ for less than a single DIMM of this stuff we've looked at today. With that taken into account, it's the only reason I can't see myself recommending this memory over other solutions that offer buyers more for their money.

Advantages

Flexable latencies
Very overclockable
Chips run cool

Disadvantages

Price

I'd like to thank the people at SimpleTech for supplying the parts for testing.