Performance Test Configuration
The six 2GB kits were tested with the DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR Athlon 64 Socket 939 motherboard. Other components remain the same as used in the memory setup in Athlon 64 Memory: Rewriting the Rules.
The A64 test bed includes components that have been proven in Socket 939 Athlon 64 benchmarking, such as the Socket 939 90nm 4000+, the OCZ Power Stream 520 Power Supply, and the NVIDIA 7800 GTX video card. We used an AMD 4000+ 90nm processor with a Revision E type memory controller. All other basic test conditions attempted to mirror those used in our earlier Athlon 64 memory reviews.
Since the video card, and platform/video drivers are upgraded from past memory testing, we found that the results were not completely consistent with past memory test results. For that reason, we retested the three 2GB kits that were previously tested. Results are still broadly comparable to past memory test results in earlier reviews, but we decided to include just the nine 2GB kit results in this roundup.
As discussed in other memory reviews, we ran a complete set of Memtest86 benchmarks with only tRAS varied to determine the best tRAS setting for these memories on the nForce4 chipset. The NVIDIA nForce4 has the best bandwidth at tRAS settings ranging from 5 to 8. Therefore, a tRAS setting of 7 was used for testing.
Test Settings
All AMD Athlon 64 processors are unlocked downward, and the FX CPUs are unlocked up and down. This feature allows a different approach to memory testing, which truly measures performance differences in memory speed alone. All tests were run with CPU speed as close to the specified 2.4GHz of the 4000+ as possible, with CPU speed/Memory Speed increased at lower multipliers to achieve 2.4 GHz. This approach allows the true measurement of the impact of higher memory speed and timings on performance, since CPU speed is fixed, removing CPU speed as a factor in memory performance.
The following settings were tested with the six 2GB kits on the DFI nF4 test bed:
The six 2GB kits were tested with the DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR Athlon 64 Socket 939 motherboard. Other components remain the same as used in the memory setup in Athlon 64 Memory: Rewriting the Rules.
The A64 test bed includes components that have been proven in Socket 939 Athlon 64 benchmarking, such as the Socket 939 90nm 4000+, the OCZ Power Stream 520 Power Supply, and the NVIDIA 7800 GTX video card. We used an AMD 4000+ 90nm processor with a Revision E type memory controller. All other basic test conditions attempted to mirror those used in our earlier Athlon 64 memory reviews.
Since the video card, and platform/video drivers are upgraded from past memory testing, we found that the results were not completely consistent with past memory test results. For that reason, we retested the three 2GB kits that were previously tested. Results are still broadly comparable to past memory test results in earlier reviews, but we decided to include just the nine 2GB kit results in this roundup.
| AMD nForce4 Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | AMD 4000+ Athlon 64(90nm) 2.4GHz, Socket 939, 1 MB cache, Dual Channel, 1000HT |
| RAM: | TWINX2048-4000PT (DS) 2X1GB Crucial Ballistix CLIII5N.32 (DS) 2X1GB G. Skill F1-3200PHU2-2GBZX (DS) 2X1GB KHX3200AK2/2G (DS) 2X1GB Mushkin 2GB Redline XP4000 (DS) 2X1GB Team XTreem TXDR 1024M400HC2 (DS) 2X1GB Corsair TWINX2048-3500XL PRO (DS) 2X1GB Gigaram 2GB Dual Channel PC-4200 (DS) 2X1GB OCZ PC4000 2x1024MB EB Platinum (DS) 2X1GB |
| Hard Drives: | Seagate 120GB SATA 7200RPM 8MB Cache |
| PCI/AGP Speed: | Fixed at 33/66 |
| Bus Master Drivers: | NVIDIA nForce Platform Driver 6.70 |
| Video Card(s): | NVIDIA 7800 GTX 256MB PCIe, 256MB aperture, 1024x768x32 |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA Forceware 81.98 Release |
| Power Supply: | OCZ Power Stream 520W |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
| Motherboard: | DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR |
| BIOS: | 7/06/2005 |
As discussed in other memory reviews, we ran a complete set of Memtest86 benchmarks with only tRAS varied to determine the best tRAS setting for these memories on the nForce4 chipset. The NVIDIA nForce4 has the best bandwidth at tRAS settings ranging from 5 to 8. Therefore, a tRAS setting of 7 was used for testing.
Test Settings
All AMD Athlon 64 processors are unlocked downward, and the FX CPUs are unlocked up and down. This feature allows a different approach to memory testing, which truly measures performance differences in memory speed alone. All tests were run with CPU speed as close to the specified 2.4GHz of the 4000+ as possible, with CPU speed/Memory Speed increased at lower multipliers to achieve 2.4 GHz. This approach allows the true measurement of the impact of higher memory speed and timings on performance, since CPU speed is fixed, removing CPU speed as a factor in memory performance.
The following settings were tested with the six 2GB kits on the DFI nF4 test bed:
- 2.4GHz-12x200/DDR400 - the highest stock memory speed supported on nF3-4/SiS755-FX/ATI Radeon Xpress 200/VIA 939 motherboards
- 2.4GHz-11x218/DDR436 - a ratio near the standard DDR433 speed
- 2.4GHz-10x240/DDR480 - a ratio near the standard rating of DDR466
- 2.4GHz-9x267/DDR533 - a memory speed achieved by only a few top memories on the Athlon 64
- 2.4GHz-8x300/DDR600 - with recent improvements in OC abilities, a very few memories can reach this next multiple with the 8 multiplier
- Highest Memory Performance - the highest memory bandwidth and game performance that we could achieve with the memory being tested. This is the highest memory speed that we could achieve with 1T Command Rate.
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bigtoe36 - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
TomThe parts are 2x1204, we don't supply single sided CE5 512 kits, infact no one does.
For the record, 4000eb is 2048mb so 2x1024mb modules.
Wesley Fink - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
The OCZ we tested is definitely a 2GB kit. I changed the Corsair name in the review since they refer to 2GB kits as TwinX 2048. However I just double-checked their web site and OCZ uses the 1024 to describe the dimm size. In fairness they are officially a 2x1024 kit, so I will update the reference to hopefully clarify what we tested.The memory manufacturers all have pretty awful naming schemes for their memory, but OCZ is still one of the most confusing.
CCUABIDExORxDIE - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
how does crucial not get gold? honestly, go out and try to buy the EB 4000 or the Redline PC4000, you cant cause of Infenions horrible yeilds. so in your mindset, the gold winner should be the UCCC corsair stuff. also where is the Gskill pc4000 and the Mushkin pc4000?? There should have been more UCCC tested and less CE-6.just my opinion though.
Wesley Fink - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
You can not presently buy Crucial any where, and Crucial told us they would not likely have the product available again. Infineon has had problems with consistency since October, but all of the memory manufacturers here assured us the Infineon-based dimms were current products and supply would continue. Some even sent links on where you could buy the Infineon dimms.We asked manufacturers to submit their "best" 2GB kit. There was nothing to stop them from submitting both Infineon CE and Samsung UCCC for the roundup. As we found in the review Samsung UCCC is not as fast as Infineon at most speeds, but it does overclock just as well, and it's generally 30% to 40% cheaper. At present Samsung UCCC chips are easier to find, but manufacturers tell us recent Infineon is finally producing better yields - and chips are becoming available again.
CCUABIDExORxDIE - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
alright...what about this? http://www.chiefvalue.com/app/productdetails.asp?s...">http://www.chiefvalue.com/app/productde....asp?sub... aww a bit of misinformation? thats rightozzimark - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
while we're mentioning misinformation.. it was stated that teamgroup can be had at newegg? atm, i'll have to disagree.second.. micron chips don't go to just crucial. i have a set of 2x1gb teamgroup in my hands that i need do a review on that use micron chips, and they easily hit 280mhz on a DFI that appears to be having serious VTT stability issues :P
Wesley Fink - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
We checked with Newegg and Team is not available there. We have removed that comment from the review and asked Team where buyers can buy their memory in the US. We'll post the info when we get an answer.cool - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
@Wesley:On the "Test Configuration" page, I noticed that you're using the following nForce drivers: "NVIDIA nForce Platform Driver 6.86"
When will they be released and do they solve the PATA/SATA and nvFirewall issues that are still plaguing nForce4 users?
Wesley Fink - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
I apologize for the typo. We used the latest release 6.70 on our DFI nF4 SLI. The latest release for AMD X16 is 6.82, and we listed a beta x16 driver rev we had on an x16 machine used for editing.The platform driver version has been corrected in the article.
PrinceGaz - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
Hopefully one day, the nVidia softtware team will pay some attention to its chipset drivers and get these issues with the PATA/SATA drivers, which in v6.70 still have issues on my nForce4 mobo, albeit not so badly as some earlier drivers, but are still unreliable enough for me to revert to the default Windows ones.As for the hardware firewall; I'm not even going to consider installing the drivers and software for that given the continued reports it has of causing serious problems. I'd rather let my dual-core processor do the work on one of its cores, which as I use Kerio Personal Firewall would hardly be noticed even in a multi-threaded app as it takes very little CPU time.
Given the mess nVidia have made of the nForce chipset drivers, and how Microsoft recommend ATI graphics-cards for the Vista betas as their drivers are better; I really do wonder if nVidia who built a good reputation for themselves with rock-solid graphics-card drivers a few years ago have lost the plot. I bought an nForce4 mobo and 6800GT last year, but am increasingly thinking an ATI graphics-card would have been a better choice, and if similarly feature-rich mobos with other chipsets were available then, that any of ATI, VIA, SiS would have been a better choice than nVidia.
It's sites like this that have over-hyped nVidia mobos since the nForce2 on performance alone that I'm sure contributed to their dominance, and the sorry state of afares we are in with their chipset drivers as there is little competition and can afford to give it low priority.