OCZ EL DDR PC-3200 2GB Gold GX XTC
 

Introduction

From the Manufacturer OCZ Technology:

• 400MHz DDR
• CL 2-3-3-8 (CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS)
• Also available in a 1024MB module
• Unbuffered
• Gold Layered XTC Heatspreader*
• Lifetime Warranty
• 2.8 Volts
• 184 Pin DIMM
• Ultra Low Noise Technology - uses various printed circuit board (PCB) techniques to reduce the amount of electrical noise that is present in all high-speed ICs. This results in faster and more stable memory.
• EVP - OCZ's unique Extended Voltage Protection feature that allows performance enthusiasts to use a VDIMM of 2.9V ± 5% without invalidating their OCZ Lifetime Warranty.

If two Gigs is too much for you, OCZ has a very similar performing memory available as 2x512 MB kit, reviewed here.

A real innovation is the new heatspreaders OCZ uses:

Are you ready for 2 GB?

Do you want to play the latest and greatest games without lag? How about using Photoshop without problems? Do you use memory intensive applications like video editing? Or do you need total system boost and the security of not having to upgrade? Or do you need 4 GB of ram? If so then you are a perfect candidate! The 2 gig alternative is great for everyone because we all have to admit 1 GB has become standard. For new games and to run at the highest settings we need to have free resources and many applications won't run smoothly without tons of free resources. The 2 GB kit is also a great choice for overclockers, because two sticks of memory are much easier on the memory controller than four sticks. However, if you are an overclocker and can live with only 1 GB, 2 x 512 MB will usually overclock better than 2 x 1024 MB.

Packaging

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This is OCZ's standard memory package. It can be opened without a knife and unlike many other packages it will not be destroyed by opening it.

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The first you will notice when looking at the memory is the sexy looking heatspreaders.

A closer look

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Each module has a sticker on it, which gives the rated speed and the stock timings. The rated timings of 2-3-3-8 are very good for 1GB modules. There are some 2 GB kits out there which can run at 2-2-2-5, but as our testing later shows, the performance difference is not that big.

OCZ has done a great job with the heatspreaders, not only do they look gorgeous they also lower your memory temperature considerably and so increase the overclocking potential. Catching their beauty on photos is quite hard, I really like how you can see the memory chips shine through the XTC's mesh.

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I assume there is a thin thermal tape between heatspreader and memory chips which keeps the heatspreaders in place, but is so thin (read: good heat transfer) that it is translucent.

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The PCB is made by Brainpower, known for being one of the best memory PCB manufacturers.

Test Setup

<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="systable">
<tr><th colspan="2" style="font-size:larger;text-align:center">Test System</th></tr>
<tr>
<th width="100">CPU:</th>
<td>AMD Athlon64 3000+ Venice</td>
</tr><tr>
<th>Motherboard:</th>
<td>DFI LanParty NF4, Bios 5.10-2 Fix</td>
</tr><tr>
<th>Memory:</th>
<td>2x 1024 MB OCZ EL DDR PC-3200 Gold GX XTC</td>
</tr><tr>
<th>Video Card:</th>
<td>ATI Radeon X850 Pro PCI-E</td>
</tr><tr>
<th>Harddisk:</th>
<td>Maxtor Diamondmax 160GB</td>
</tr><tr>
<th>Power Supply:</th>
<td>HEC PurePower 475</td>
</tr><tr>
<th>Software:</th>
<td>Windows XP SP2, Catalyst 5.11</td>
</tr>
</table>

Performance

The first test we did was test how the memory performs at a stock frequency of 200 FSB with the default timings recommended by OCZ. We used 2.8V here as specified by OCZ.

Now we wanted to know if the memory can run at 2.6V. With 200 MHz it worked fine. We increased the memory clock step by step, to find out what the maximum clocks were when running at the DDR specification default voltage of 2.6V. At 211 MHz the system got instable.

We increased voltage to 2.8V and 2.9V but saw no difference in overclocking at all.

Next, we tried if we could run different timings than OCZ's recommended setting of 2-3-3-8. We found 2.5-3-3-8 to work very good. Actually, I would advertise this product as 2.5-3-3-8 with a higher clock frequency. In our tests the memory could do 241 MHz, at any voltage. So why not call it PC-3800 2.5-3-3-8 ?

In order to help you get a feeling of how much performance difference lies between CL2, CL2.5 and CL3 with this memory, we compiled you three benchmark runs. The only difference between the three runs was the CAS latency setting. Everything else was left from the previous run. The performance difference is about 2% between CL2 and CL3.

For further comparison, the test "JEDEC DDR400A" shows a generic DDR module running at JEDEC standard timings.

<table width="640" border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="ramtable">
<tr>
<th colspan="9" style="font-size:larger"><strong>OCZ EL DDR PC-3200 Gold GX XTC </strong></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th nowrap="nowrap">CPU Clock &amp;<br />
Memory Ratio</th>
<th>Memory<br />
Speed</th>
<th>Memory<br />
Timings</th>
<th>Everest<br />
Read</th>
<th>Everest<br />
Write</th>
<th>Everest<br />
Latency</th>
<th>Quake 3<br />
Timedemo</th>
<th>3DMark<br />
2001SE</th>
<th>SuperPi<br />
Mod 1M</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>9 x 200 1:1</th>
<td>200 MHz</td>
<td>2-3-3-8 2.8V</td>
<td>5338 MB/s </td>
<td>2118 MB/s </td>
<td>51.0 ns </td>
<td>255.9 fps </td>
<td>20039</td>
<td>46.47 s </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>9 x 200 1:1 </th>
<td>200 MHz</td>
<td>2.5-3-3-8 2.6V</td>
<td>5227 MB/s </td>
<td>2112 MB/s </td>
<td>52.2 ns </td>
<td>254.2 fps </td>
<td>20032</td>
<td>46.70 s </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>9 x 200 1:1 </th>
<td>200 MHz</td>
<td>3-3-3-8 2.6V</td>
<td>5222 MB/s </td>
<td>2096 MB/s </td>
<td>52.1 ns </td>
<td>253.8 fps </td>
<td>19825</td>
<td>46.81 s </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>9 x 211 1:1 </th>
<td>211 MHz </td>
<td>2-3-3-8 2.6V</td>
<td>5645 MB/s </td>
<td>2280 MB/s </td>
<td>47.2 ns </td>
<td>269.7 fps </td>
<td>20891</td>
<td>44.06 s </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>9 x 211 1:1 </th>
<td>211 MHz</td>
<td>2-3-3-8 2.9V</td>
<td>5645 MB/s </td>
<td>2280 MB/s </td>
<td>47.2 ns </td>
<td>269.7 fps </td>
<td>20891</td>
<td>44.06 s </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>9 x 241 1:1 </th>
<td>241 MHz</td>
<td>2.5-3-3-8 2.6V</td>
<td>6372 MB/s </td>
<td>2554 MB/s </td>
<td>43.3 ns </td>
<td>306.0 fps </td>
<td>23298</td>
<td>38.76 s </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>9 x 241 1:1 </th>
<td>241 MHz</td>
<td>2.5-3-3-8 2.9V</td>
<td>6372 MB/s </td>
<td>2554 MB/s </td>
<td>43.3 ns </td>
<td>306.0 fps </td>
<td>23298</td>
<td>38.76 s </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>9 x 241 1:1 </th>
<td>241 MHz</td>
<td>3-3-3-8 2.6V</td>
<td>6238 MB/s </td>
<td>2538 MB/s </td>
<td>46.7 ns </td>
<td>303.9 fps </td>
<td>22927</td>
<td>39.08 s </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>9 x 241 1:1 </th>
<td>241 MHz</td>
<td>3-3-3-8 2.9V</td>
<td>6238 MB/s </td>
<td>2538 MB/s </td>
<td>46.7 ns </td>
<td>303.9 fps </td>
<td>22927</td>
<td>39.08 s </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>JEDEC DDR400A </th>
<td>200 MHz</td>
<td>2.5-3-3-8 2.9V</td>
<td>5322 MB/s </td>
<td>2096 MB/s </td>
<td>51.0 ns </td>
<td>255.9 fps </td>
<td>20039</td>
<td>46.47 s </td>
</tr>
</table>

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Giving performance numbers for 1 GB of memory vs. 2 GB is very hard. Most benchmarking programs are not made to benefit from more memory.

For me having a lot of memory is very important, since I multitask a lot. This is a typical process list for me when working on a review:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/O...es/taskman.gif

I usually take a ton of 8MP photos of whatever I review and it's just so much more convenient to drag all those photos into Photoshop and being able to sort them out, categorize and work on them at the same time without having huge slowdown because of the operating system running out of memory.

I do not play much, but with many newer games I tried it has occurred to me a lot that there were short loading pauses during gaming. For example in Battlefield 2, FEAR and Need for Speed: Most Wanted. After installing upgrading to 2 GB of memory all these lags were gone and the gameplay felt much smoother. You have to consider that the actual FPS did not increase, it was just that the horrible pauses during the action were gone.

---

For an easier comparison with other modules, we set a maximum voltage of 2.9V and tested until we found the highest clock frequency and fastest timings for this memory. The benchmarks Everest Read, Everest Write and Quake 3 were run. We then calculated the performance increase in percent compared to some standard DDR400 memory running at JEDEC DDR400A (2.5-3-3-8). The average percentage of the three benchmarks is listed in following table:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/O...es/vsjedec.gif

Value and Conclusion

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<tr><th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/dollar.gif</th>
<td>

• Two gigs of OCZ PC-3200 Gold XTC can be yours for about $250, which is very respectable. The 1GB kit of OCZ Gold XTC which performs very similar but offers only half the storage costs $170.

</td>
</tr><tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbup.gif</th>
<td>

• 2 GB
• Stunningly looking heatspreaders
• Excellent performance
• Great overclocking at CL2.5
• Does not need high voltage to perform
• Warranty for higher voltage
• Good price

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbdown.gif</th>
<td>

• Does not run 2-2-2-x
• Overclock does not scale with voltage
• Small overclock at CL2

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>8.2</th>
<td>Users who run applications which require a lot of memory will love these modules. With modern games eating up more and more memory, hardcore gamers should also think about spending their money for memory instead of buying just another video card generation. What does it help if you can run the eye candy at 100 FPS but have a 0.5 second loading pause every 30 seconds?<br />
The OCZ PC-3200 2 GB XTC deliver very solid performance at stock or overclocked. We saw the best overclocking potential at the CL2.5 setting which is not that much slower than the CL2 defaults. Unfortunately the memory can not run at 2-2-2-x timings, no matter the voltage. But again, the difference between the timings is rather small, and in return you get the benefit of having a lot more available memory for your applications.<br />
However, if you are doing extreme overclocking and benchmarking, where every little bit of processing power is more important than actual memory size, you should continue using 2x512 MB memory kits at the tightest timings possible. If you are now thinking you could just get 4x 512 MB tight-latency modules and run them at their advertised timings, you will be disappointed. Most Athlon64 motherboards are barely able to run with four memory modules, to get them stable you will often have to relax the timings.
</td>
</tr>
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</table>

where can you buy these they look very great for ocing