| CPU |
Intel
Pentium 4 "640"
Prescott -
200Mhz FSB / 2MB L2 @
3.2GHz |
| Motherboard |
Asus
P5WD2 Premium
Intel 955X Chipset |
This
CPU and Motherboard combination has been a tried and true overclocking
success story. It's able to ramp up the CPU Front side bus to 250MHz with
ease. The in place memory multipliers allow for some very high memory bus
speeds. While running the CPU front side bus at a stock 200MHz, the memory
controller has native support for 800MHz which has been put in place by Asus
engineers. We're going to run the memory through it's different paces and
see what we can come up with.
| vDIMM |
CPU
FSB |
CPU
SPEED |
Memory
Speed |
Latency
Timings |
Sandra
(ALU) |
Sandra
(FPU) |
Science Mark 2
MemBench |
|
1.8v |
200MHz |
3200
MHz |
400MHz |
3-3-3-8 |
4544MB/s |
4531MB/s |
4043.37MB/s |
| 1.9v |
200MHz |
3200MHz |
533MHz |
4-3-3-8 |
5011MB/s |
5006MB/s |
4349.60MB/s |
| 1.9v |
200MHz |
3200MHz |
600MHz |
4-4-4-8 |
4849MB/s |
4846MB/s |
4612.36MB/s |
| 2.0 |
200MHz |
3200MHz |
667MHz |
4-4-4-8 |
4979MB/s |
4982MB/s |
4459.91MB/s |
|
1.8 |
200MHz |
3200MHz |
667MHz |
4-4-4-12* |
4967MB/s |
4960MB/s |
4458.53MB/s |
| 2.1 |
200MHz |
3200MHz |
800MHz |
4-4-4-12 |
5046MB/s |
5049MB/s |
4576.93MB/s |
* Denotes: Manufacturer rated timings, voltage, and
speed.
Here we
can see a pretty good mix of what this Patriot PC2-5300 is capable of. At a
1:1 ratio with the CPU front side, the memory can operate with latency
timings that we see in a lot of budget DDR modules. Naturally, this clock
speed doesn't post very impressive numbers. A slight bump in voltage lets us
wrench down the timings as we ramp up the bus speed, until we are able to
run with better than manufacturer spec at the recommended bus speed.
Finally, we are able to capitalize on the 800Mhz memory bus by using the
same timings and voltage as Patriot's PC-6400 kits.
| vDIMM |
CPU
FSB |
CPU
SPEED |
Memory
Speed |
Latency
Timings |
Sandra
(ALU) |
Sandra
(FPU) |
Science Mark 2
MemBench |
|
1.8v |
266MHz |
4274MHz |
400MHz |
3-3-3-8 |
5169MB/s |
5175MB/s |
4638.56MB/s |
| 1.9v |
266MHz |
4274MHz |
533MHz |
4-3-3-8 |
6308MB/s |
6322MB/s |
5563.03MB/s |
| 2.0v |
266MHz |
4274MHz |
667MHz |
4-4-4-8 |
6380MB/s |
6368MB/s |
5438.47MB/s |
|
1.8v |
266MHz |
4274MHz |
667MHz |
4-4-4-12* |
6381MB/s |
6394MB/s |
5440.73MB/s |
|
2.0v |
266Mhz |
4274Mhz |
711Mhz |
4-4-4-12 |
6599MB/s |
6607MB/s |
5803.74MB/s |
|
2.1 |
266MHz |
4274MHz |
800MHz |
4-4-4-12* |
6639MB/s |
6638MB/s |
5881.32MB/s |
* Denotes: Manufacturer rated timings, voltage, and
speed.
The
Asus P5WD2-Premium with the Intel 955X chipset has a lot of memory dividers
in place which aid greatly in overclocking. Since the board has native
support for processors with a 1066Mhz FSB, moving the front side bus up to
266 for overclocking meant we still have access to memory bus speeds which
are close to industry standard. The high CPU clock speed coupled with the
higher front side bus posted the expected high bandwidth test results. When
testing the CPU with a 266FSB, we did loose the intermediate 600Mhz memory
speed, but picked up a 711Mhz speed instead. Not a bad trade when you
consider that most RAM that can run at 667Mhz will surely run at 600Mhz.
This gives you some overclocking headroom to help push your memory, just a
little, even if it won't completely reach the 800Mhz mark.
Final Thoughts...........
DDR2 has been maturing at a pretty
rapid rate, which has a lot to do with AMD's decision to adopt the memory
architecture. With dual-channel RAM
kits like this available, the integration will be warmly welcomed, and this
means great things for overclockers! Finding that right mix of bus speed
and latency timing will take a bit of testing on your own machine to
see where you're most happy with your rigs performance. Synthetic benchmark
scores can give you direction, but real world applications and game
performance will all act differently under these same configurations. All in
all, I feel that Patriot has delivered an outstanding product, and labeled
it correctly for the general public. As for the overclockers, the RAM does
offer a bit of headroom, easily hitting the 800Mhz mark using the same
settings Patriot defined for their PC2-6400 kit with the same LLK model
scheme. Since it is likely that not all kits will perform in this manner,
you should make sure you motherboard has enough voltage setting and
memory multipliers to ensure you get the most that this RAM has to offer.
You
will find this kit very competitive in the
high-speed DDR2 arena. For most PC2-5300 kits, the 4-4-4-12 latency timings are among the best seen,
especially for the price that this kit is set at. Add to the fact that the
kit is very capable of hitting 800Mhz, and its overclocker value and appeal
is near perfect. All of this matched with a very reasonable price and a
lifetime warranty makes the Patriot PC2-5300LLK a very solid investment.
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