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OCZ DDR2 PC2 7200 Platinum XTC EPP


Date
: 07/10/06 – 04:24:38 AM

Author
:

Category
: Memory

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer:
OCZ Technology

Price:
$273-499USD (ZipZoomFly – Newegg) The price flucuates vastly on this kit.

The time has finally come where I have an excuse to play with DDRII memory. The release of AMDs AM2 platform with DDRII support has been the final push that memory makers were looking for much like myself. DDR memory is officially the past and going forward DDRII will rein king. The evolution of DDR memory to the higher frequencies of DDRII has not been a smooth one with early performance complaints of DDRII due to the high latencies associated with the memory when running on an Intel platform. That all changes with AM2 having on-die memory controllers and memory manufacturers producing DDRII ICs that a short while ago would have defied logic with their ability to run with such tight latencies.

As usual OCZ has been working hard to put together some of the best DDRII memory modules our hard earned money can buy and is leading the way in DDRII much like they did with DDR. The never-ending search for faster memory, more bandwidth, and tighter timings has produced some amazing modules of late and today I will get the immense pleasure of working out such a kit.

The OCZ DDR2 PC2-7200 Platinum XTC SLI-Ready EPP dual channel kit sure has a long name and just enough acronyms within that name to earn you a double and triple word score. There are not too many kits specified to run at the PC-7200 frequency of DDR900 and certainly not at the incredible timings of 4-4-3-15. Requiring 2.1v to achieve such speed and latencies, this memory kit is covered by OCZs EVP coverage up to 2.2v +/- %5. Something tells me we won't be stopping at 2.3v though, I see big things for this particular kit of memory, time and voltage will only tell.

Page 2 : Package & Contents

One day, someone will do something new for the memory package and this section will be interesting again but until then, it is just more of the same. I just consider it more eye candy as we can see the modules the whole time.

There they all in all their Platinum DDRII glory. The blister pack has done its job once again on the journey north as the memory appears to be flawless as usual. OCZ hasn't changed their package at all for DDRII modules as they use the same insert with a single addition. The bottom left corner is home to the only DDRII markings aside from the part number on the modules themselves.

It is just a minor in-obtrusive advance to DDRII and OCZ aren't about to make a big deal about it.

As I was saying, the modules are no different from any DDR XTC module having the standard sticker with part number and important specifications on it. The web site for these modules lists them as a 4-4-3-15 part number at PC7200 yet the sticker has them binned as 4-4-4-15. This is perhaps just a late change to their specifications after further testing..

The rear of the package is the same as the front with a simple addition of a DDRII logo on the bottom left corner. We now break the seal and I get my grubby fingers on these shiny XTC modules.

Outside of the package the sticks look even better than they do behind the plastic. Like all XTC modules, the memory is blanketed in the honeycomb heatspreader that OCZ has made mainstream in the last year or so. The big Z in the middle means only one thing…ocZ.

I am not sure if you can see but I am trying to show the piece that actually mounts to the ICs under the heatspreader. The honeycomb sheets are one piece and the trim with the Z above is another piece all together. Pulling these heatspreaders off usually messes up the thermal tape so I will only be peeling back a corner to see what ICs we are packing.

The XTC heatspreaders aren't just here for looks, they are designed to promote cooling by increasing airflow to the actual modules and ICs at the same time evening out the heatload and cooling the modules. This design is a lighter heatspreader than past designs and also implores a smaller thermal material between the ICs and the heatspreader.

This image shows just how small the ICs on the modules are. If you look close in the other photos, you can see that the ICs are the smaller square ICs that most DDRII modules will come with these days. Some will have larger ICs like DDR memory but those are not the norm.

No such thing as too much eye candy.

Page 3 : Specifications

Leading off tonights specifications section we have a small screenshot of the OCZ web site that describes these modules in all their glory:

What is the most important Acronym in that image above? DDR? 2GB? XTC? Wrong answer but all good guesses. In my opinion, all of those acronyms are important but the one that gets me excited is the EVP** that is listed under the Special Features section. This will allow me to feed 2.2V +/-%5 without voiding warranty. This means I can bump the voltage up to 2.3V for this review and you know I will be. The voltage may not be everything to everyone but for the enthusiast, it is. And lets be honest, if your running a kit of this DDRII 900 then chances are you are an enthusiast.

If you are not an enthusiast and wouldn't even know how to find a guide to walk you through manually setting your timings then the big acronym with this memory for you is the
EPP
, Enhanced Performance Profile. Here is what OCZ has to say about it:

Basically NVIDIA has come up with a standard that memory manufacturers can program into the modules as a secondary SPD timings table. When
EPP
memory is matched up with an EPP compatible motherboard, with the NVIDIA 590SLI chipset, then the memory will actually automatically adjust for the EPP profile which will be a little bit more aggressive than standard timings the BIOS would choose in a non-EPP motherboard. This is sort of NVIDIA's built in overclocking scheme they have been working on. Much like how certain NVIDIA video cards when mated to a 590 chipset they will automatically overclock as well. When you drop the XTC7200 in the M2N32-SLI Deluxe and have the BIOS settings at Auto it should automatically recognize the advanced timings, frequency, and voltage that these modules run at and adjust accordingly.

Being XTC memory modules the XTC7200 come with the XTC honeycomb heatspreaders. At this point it almost seems weird to grab a set of OCZ memory without the XTC heatspreaders as they have become a staple in the recent OCZ lineup with no indication of going anywhere. The Xtreme Thermal Convection heatspreaders are design to introduce more cool air to the module itself and remove even more heat than traditional designs. In the past my UTT BH-5 modules equipped with XTC heatspreaders had no problem handling 3.7V I dump on them regularly, I assume the XTC7200 are ready for the abuse I am about to put them through. In the last section I left out the customary photo of the ICs under the heatspreaders, from now on I will be saving that information for this section:

Before everyone gets all excited, these are not Micron D9 "Fat Body" they are
Micron D9GKX
. Micron has been leading the DDRII pile for a while with amazing IC's and these D9GKX seem to be the new summer hit record for memory manufacturers, and I say plural because OCZ are not alone in using these same ICs in higher screened modules such as the Platinum XTC8000 modules. Obviously there are higher binned parts but something tells me this kit is prepped for some pretty impressive results looking at its heritage.

Page 4 : Installation & Overclocking

For this review, the memory will be pushed to the limit by the following hardware:

Installation obviously isnt something that needs to be outlined as it really is plug and play. The memory only fits in one direction on four spots on the motherboard. In order to run dual channel we have to run the memory in the same colored slots and since the first two seem to handle memory better I will start there.

My method for overclocking memory has really refined itself over the last few months with DDR memory and with DDRII it appears that there arent many adjustments to be made in my process. For stability testing I now find that StressPrime04, SuperPi 32M runs, and some 3D stability testing provides a good accurate platform for testing memory stability. The screen shots of each stable overclock will speak for itself as to what I feel is stable. I will start with the tightest timings offered on this AM2 platform with the M2N32-SLI Deluxe and work my way up:

DDR820 3-3-3-8 @ 2.3v 2T

Starting off with the absolute tightest timings this AM2 platform offers I was able to climb up to DDR 820 @ 3-3-3-8 staying under warranty with 2.3v. Don't worry about the times and scores, stability is what I was testing, not performance. The processor clocks will come up soon enough.

DDR960 4-4-3-5 @ 2.1v 2T

This is basically stock timings to a certain extent. Essentially I set the voltage to 2.1V, which is what is considered stock, and then pushed the memory at the stock timings of 4-4-3-x. I consider TRAS to always be a guide and you should run whatever provides best performance. In this case, loosening the TRAS up didn't offer any overclocking benefits at this voltage.

DDR1018 4-4-3-5 @ 2.3v 2T

I like the way the modules responded at 4-4-3-5 and decided to focus on overclocking these timings. SO I increased the voltage to a maximum of 2.3V and was able to stabilize the memory just over DDR1000. This has to be considered very impressive as we are already 100MHz over stock speed and at timings that are far tighter than they would be at stock. All of this and my motherboard can still give more voltage…warranty is over rated anyway. At this point I don't recommend anyone to use these voltages as your warranty is void and you can damage your modules.

DDR1098 4-4-3-5 @ 2.5v 2T

I consider this to be DDR1100 for those that say it is only DDR1098…you can get lost in a northern Minnesota snow storm. The secondary timings needed a slight adjustment here and there to stabilize at this frequency but these modules are now starting to impress me. Voltage seems to be the answer for higher clocks at these tight timings so 2.5V will not be the limit but as of right now I am limited because I don't want to volt mod my M2N32-SLI just yet. Next up will be max clocks but my CPU will be the downfall to this attempt.

DDR1140 5-5-4-8 @ 2.3v 2T

There is not much of an improvement from DDR1100 but I only loosened up to 5-5-4-8. My CPU runs out very soon anyway but I am confident with the right CPU I can see DDR1200 around the 5-5-5-8 mark with these modules at 2.3v-2.5v. Again, this much voltage will kill your modules if used 24/7 so keep it under 2.3v and always use active cooling when above 2.1v.

Page 5 : Performance & Testing

An entire slew of programs and benchmarks were run including the standard SiSoft Sandra and Everest bandwidth tests. FutureMark offers a memory test with their PCMark 04 and 05 so those will be run for comparison purposes. For some application results I will run the default 3DMark 01 SE as I find it a great test of system performance. SuperPi will be run and some gaming benchmarks will be run near the end of this section. You have seen the test rig, and now know what is going to be run, it is time to see what this DDRII is capable of. All benchmarks were ran three times and averaged for the charts below.

Settings Legend

The bandwidth results are interesting because I was finally able to simply change the speed and timings of the memory and leave the CPU at the same frequency. This gives us the ultimate ability to compare frequency vs. timings. Of the bandwidth tests, it appears as though the modules scale with frequency evenly despite loosening the timings up. I have a feeling ultimate memory performance on AM2 will come down to frequency and not timings. It will be interesting to see if performance in applications is the same as the bandwidth numbers.

The frequency and timings shaves about 1 second off a 1M run at this frequency and 40 seconds off a 32M run up Super Pi. Super Pi is still a benchmark I guess but apparently isn't influenced a large margin by timings and scales with bandwidth regardless of primary timings. You will notice that alongside the three sets of results at 2.87GHz I have two other sets of data (Blue and Yellow). These came from running the motherboard complete stock, out of the box, with these modules installed to show how EPP alone can overclock a CPU.

The EPP capabilities of these modules allow the user to simply adjust the performance level he or she chooses by a simple selection or two in the BIOS when EPP memory is mated to an EPP compliant board like the 590 SLI chipset on this M2N32-SLI. After I finished all the testing and manual overclocking of these modules I figured I would see what this EPP was all about so I reset the CMOS and did a reboot.

This is the first screen, the three options are self-explanatory but not really. Essentially as I understand it, memory manufacturers can have three separate sets of timings programmed into the modules and we have three options to choose from here in the BIOS. Make sense to anyone else other than me? So I tested and sure enough, Optimal is one of the SPD columns in the CPU-Z reading and High-Performance/High-Frequency were the same set of timings. The only difference is the TRC.
Optimal = 20
High-Freq./Perf. = 23.

Optimal

This is what timings we get when set to Optimal, again, the only difference with either of the High settings is the TRC gets upped to 23 and CPU-Z verifies that. Speaking of CPU-Z, thanks again go out to Franck for a quick update to get correct single core AM2 recognition.

Once we choose what memory timings we want the system to run we can also choose a CPU overclock. This means, that no matter what options the manufacturer of the motherboard has for overclocking, EPP motherboards can be automatically overclocked to run at the maximum frequency of the memory such as the DDR900 modules because overclocking is necessary for anything over DDR800 with AM2.

High-Performance / CPUOC Max

The above screen shot is the result of
High-Performance
and the
CPUOC Max
selected in the BIOS. Keep in mind we have overclocked the CPU to almost 2.3GHz from 2GHz in order to run the memory at the EPP rated DDR900. I have no way to measure VDIMM (memory voltage) from within Windows yet or I am too lazy to look so I am not sure if the memory voltage is adjusted at all during this process. The result is an almost 15% overclock without going into the CPU overclocking section of the motherboard, just having EPP modules and an NVIDIA 590-SLI motherboard. I think it works as advertised from what I can tell.

Page 6 : Conclusion

I may not have shown my enthusiasm during the review in order to maintain a certain level of professionalism but in the conclusion I feel it necessary to let it be known that I am very impressed with this OCZ DDR2 PC2-7200 Platinum XTC SLI-Ready EPP dual channel kit. The platinum heatspreaders are the best looking of the OCZ bunch and seem to do their job of letting the memory run cool. Throughout testing I used active cooling but the modules were abused and still held up. Please do not use the voltages I did or you will void your warranty and likely damage your memory.

If is wasn't so early in the AM2 cycle I may have been able to find a CPU that could run these modules past where I took them but I didn't even have to loosen the timings to 5-5-5-15 to max them out on my CPU. It is a shame, as pushing for higher clocks may bring them up to the top of the DDRII list in a hurry. Be sure that This Platinum 2GB kit from OCZ will be the standard at which I measure all other DDRII modules whether they are PC-6400 or PC-8000.

With higher clocks on the CPU in the future I will update the overclocking section with further stable frequencies and timings and fully expect to break DDR1200 Prime stable. Even still, I have to put the Overclockers Online Editors Choice award on this memory as it will run optimized for the beginner or bench like a champ for the professionals.

Advantages

• EPP timings chart for optimization
• Wide range of useable timings/frequencies
• OCZ quality and warranty
• Responds to voltage for bench markers

  Disadvantages

• High voltage required to truly maximize kit
• I don't think I even have to say it but…$$$$$$!!

  Overclockers Online would like to thank OCZ for supplying the sample for this review.