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OCZ Value RAM


Date
: 01/24/01 – 11:41:29 PM

Author
:

Category
: Memory

Manufactor: OCZ

Price: $62.99

Thanks to the peeps at OCZ for supplying us with the OCZ Value RAM.

Introduction

High quality memory sticks are in great demand. People with Intel CPU’s need it, as overclocking with an Intel CPU means overclocking the Front Side Bus, which also overclocks the memory. With the arrival of the KT133A chipset for
socket A motherboards, TBird and Duron owners are finally able to enjoy a higher memory performance acquired with the ability to overclock by means of FSB.

Today I present you a review of the OCZ PC133 Value RAM, which is available in 64MB, 128MB and 256MB sticks. Don’t let the ‘Value’ scare you off, because this piece of hardware kicks some serious butt. Let’s take a look.

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Specifications

OCZ is selling the Value series as their low budget RAM, for those who can not afford to pay $400 for a stick of memory. They rate the Value series at PC133 CAS 3/3/3. This means the memory can run at 133MHz with a CAS setting of 3/3/3. Our testsample was a stick of 128MB, but the 64MB and the 256MB sticks will perform just as well.

The text on the chips clearly read ‘Infineon’ and and the end you can see -7.5 which means 7.5ns and that equals the PC133 specs!

- PC133

- CAS 3/3/3

- AMD & Intel Approved

Testing

To test the ram, I installed it in on of my test rigs and used it for several weeks before writing this review. Why? Because I don’t think I could write a realistic review of the ram if I only tested in for a couple hours. I also tried it on several motherboards like the Asus CUSL2 and the Abit SA6R to make sure the memory is fully compatible and stable with different brands. It past all tests without problems.

System Setup

- Abit KT7A-RAID

- AMD Duron 600 (unlocked)

- Western Digital 20GB UDMA100 7200rpm IDE Hard Drive

- Hercules Geforce GTS

- Windows ME + VIA 4.25a drivers

After playing with this memory for a while, I not only found this ram to be rockstable at 133MHz CAS 3/3/3, it also worked perfectly well at 133MHz CAS 2/2/2 which gives a nice performance boost of about 20%.

Feeling the need for more, I started increasing the front side bus to see what this baby could do. After several hours of testing, 146MHz CAS 2/2/2 was the best this memory could do.

When I set the CAS settings to 3/3/3 the RAM made it all the way up to 150MHz!! Not bad for a stick that’s sold as PC133.

Benchmarks

Sisoft Sandra Memory Benchmark

I ran test at several front side busses to show you what you could gain by lowering your multiplier and upping the front side bus (in case you have an unlocked AMD cpu). For Intel owners I suggest they buy a pretested cpy that will do a front side bus of 150MHz. I had a P3 650E that could run at 154MHz fsb, which was very fast until I managed to crash and burn the chip :( …

As you can see the OCZ RAM is kicking some serious butt!

The benchmarks are proving it! This piece of ‘Value’ hardware is kicking some serious booty in the tests. The RAM is perfectly stable at all the tested speeds since I ran Prime95 several hours at all speeds and I played games like Colin McRae 2, Quake 3, etc, which never crashed or gave errors.

Conclusion

The OCZ Value RAM is certainly a very good buy! The price is right, and the performance is just great. This RAM is kicking some serious butt, and it is even outperforming other, more famous, brands! I don’t think anyone is going to
complain when they get PC150 CAS 3/3/3 when they actually payed for PC133 CAS 3/3/3.

Good

- Price

- Performance

Bad

- Nothing what so ever!