Overclocking:
Before we get to benchmarking, let's see how well this kit can be overclocked. I am certainly no expert overclocker, and would expect more experienced overclockers to get better results that I did.
With my previous RAM, the OCZ Technology Special Ops Urban Edition 2GB kit, I was able to perform a simple overclock by adjusting the CPU Frequency to 235MHz, with an 11 multiplier. Loosening the timings, I was able to take the memory to 250MHz. Finally, by lowering the HTT to 4, and CPU multiplier to 10, I received an overclock of 255MHz, which put the memory operating at 1020MHz DDR2, well over the 800MHz the OCZ Special Ops Urban Edition modules were rated for. All of this was also performed with only a single video card, as I have not had much success at overclocking while in SLI mode.
With the OCZ Technology SLI edition kit I was able to get a base overclock of 245MHz in SLI mode, with a slight instability issue. Lowering it to 240MHz gave me a stable system. Adjusting the HTT and CPU multiplier did not give me any better results in SLI or single video card modes. However, I was able to tighten the timings on the memory to 4-4-3-10 (without using EPP).
Benchmarking:
For the benchmarking portion of the review I will be comparing the OCZ Technology DDR2-6400 Special Ops Urban Edition 2GB kit to the OCZ Technology PC2-8500 Platinum SLI-Ready Dual Channel DDR2 2GB kit, evaluating the RAM at two speeds; 200MHz and 235MHz. I will not be adjusting the timings of either kit, and will enable the EPP on the SLI kit since that is what we are really curious about.
The benchmarks to be run will include:
» SiSoft Sandra 2007 Memory Benchmark
» Everest Ultimate Edition 2006 Memory Benchmark
» 3DMark2006
» Real World Gaming
» F.E.A.R. Extraction Point (demo)
» Battlefield 2
SiSoft Sandra Memory Benchmark:
SiSoft Sandra 2007's suite of benchmarks includes one that offers a pair of results related to memory performance. The values are provided in units of MB/s, and higher values are better.
As you can see from the data below, Sandra is only reporting a 1.0% to 1.5% performance increase over the OCZ Technology SOE RAM when run at the base clock speeds. When you kick in some easy overclocking, I was able to receive a 16% and 17% performance increase on the SLI modules. Comparing the OCZ Technology SOE and OCZ Technology SLI during overclocked testing, I found that I was receiving close to a 4.5% performance increase!
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