Test Setup

Test System
CPU:	Intel E6300 Allendale 1.8 GHz, 2 MB Cache
Motherboard:	ASUS P5B Deluxe BIOS 0706 Intel P965 C1
Video Card:	ATI Radeon X850 Pro PCI-E
Harddisk:	Maxtor Diamondmax 160GB
Power Supply:	OCZ GameXStream 700W
Software:	Windows XP SP2, Catalyst 6.9

Performance

In the first test we evaluate how these modules do at their default settings, to establish a baseline performance value.
Next we tried how much further we could overclock at these default settings. Unfortunately only a mere 5 MHz overclock was possible.
The next two tests show how well the memory responds to different voltages. We tried 2.3V, 2.15V and 2.0V. The results of 525 MHz / 523 MHz / 520 MHz tell us that this memory really does need high voltage to be able to run at its advertised speeds. But it also tells us that it still can do well over 1000 MHz, even when running at 2.0V which almost every serious motherboard out there can deliver to the memory.
An interesting "feature" of the P965 chipset (no matter which memory) that I wanted to show you is that it changes some chipset timings around to be able to run stable at 400 FSB+. If you take a look at the results of the 7 x 416 vs. the 7 x 399 runs you can clearly see that even though the FSB is lower, the memory bandwidth is higher. The benchmark performance is not higher though, even if you take the CPU clock difference into account.
To see what this memory can do with relaxed timings, we set the timings to 6-6-6-18 which is pretty much the slowest setting the P965 offers. An amazing DDR2-1178 is now possible. This might be a useful setting when you are trying to max out a Conroe E6300, which requires insane high FSB frequencies if you get a good CPU. The lowest divider available in the chipset is 1:1, so FSB 589 is possible with this memory kit.
Other people may want to tighten the latencies some since they don't need such high FSBs. This is also possible with the PC2-8800. When running at 4-4-4-12 you can still get a nice 440 MHz memory speed.
When the timings are tightened even more, you still have 363 MHz at 3-2-2-4 which is the fastest setting available in the chipset. This is a useful setting for people with Extreme Edition CPUs that run at high multipliers.
For further comparison, the test "JEDEC DDR2-533" shows a generic DDR-2 module running at JEDEC standard timings.

OCZ PC2-8800 Gold 2 GB Kit
CPU Clock & Memory Ratio	Memory Speed	Memory Timings	Everest Read	Everest Write	Everest Latency	Quake 3 Timedemo	3DMark 2001SE	SuperPi Mod 1M
7 x 440 4:5	550 MHz	5-6-6-15 2.4V	8463 MB/s	7833 MB/s	62.0 ns	586.0 fps	33623	18.70 s
7 x 444 4:5	555 MHz	5-6-6-15 2.4V	8529 MB/s	7975 MB/s	61.8 ns	593.2 fps	33996	18.48 s
7 x 420 4:5	525 MHz	5-6-6-15 2.3V	8069 MB/s	7569 MB/s	65.0 ns	573.2 fps	33463	19.10 s
7 x 418 4:5	523 MHz	5-6-6-15 2.15V	8033 MB/s	7434 MB/s	65.3 ns	571.2 fps	33411	19.16 s
7 x 416 4:5	520 MHz	5-6-6-15 2.0V	7997 MB/s	7494 MB/s	65.5 ns	567.3 fps	33332	19.23 s
7 x 399 4:5	499 MHz	5-6-6-15 2.0V	8857 MB/s	7203 MB/s	53.6 ns	544.5 fps	32679	20.08 s
7 x 471 4:5	589 MHz	6-6-6-18 2.4V	8801 MB/s	8489 MB/s	59.8 ns	623.1 fps	34552	17.45 s
7 x 352 4:5	440 MHz	4-4-4-12 2.4V	8136 MB/s	6366 MB/s	55.7 ns	488.9 fps	31210	22.13 s
7 x 363 1:1	363 MHz	3-2-2-4 2.4V	7057 MB/s	6490 MB/s	70.7 ns	485.7 fps	30091	22.22 s
JEDEC DDR2-533	266 MHz	4-4-4-12	5472 MB/s	4791 MB/s	81.8 ns	368.1 fps	25826	29.58 s