AM2 and DDR2

[996GT2]

After seeing AT's AM2 reviews, I was pretty shocked at the difference 133MHz could make on an AM2 system- ~3 seconds SuperPi 2M, almost 10 FPS gains in most games, etc. Since my OCZ Gold doesn't have an affinity for OCing to high clocks, I decided to try a friend's Corsair XMS2 and see the difference at DDR2-800 vs DDR2-620 (620 b/c of only 4 RAM dividers on K9N Plat.). After some SuperPi runs, I found that while there was quite a bit of performance difference between DDDR2-620 and 800 (1.2 seconds in SuperPi 1M), there was practically ZERO difference when the DDR2 was running at DDR2-620 at CAS 3 (compared to DDR2-800 CAS 4).

The two brands of RAM I tested:
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j120/996gt2/DSC02414.jpg

OCZ Gold DDR2-667@ 620 MHz, 3-4-4-12 @ 2.0V
Corsair XMS2-675 @ 800MHz, 4-4-4-12 @ 2.1V

32.5 Sec SuperPi 1M with OCZ Gold at DDR2-620, 3-4-4-12 (C&Q ON)
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j120/996gt2/32-1.jpg

32.17 Sec SuperPi 1M with Corsair XMS2 at DDR2-800, 4-4-4-12 (C&Q OFF)
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j120/996gt2/SPi1M.jpg


There was practically no difference in SuperPi times between the two settings even though the Corsair RAM had a 180mhz clock advantage. I also ran SuperPi on my OCZ RAM with Cool and Quiet on, wuich usually adds a few tenths to a 1M time due to the CPU having to ramp up speed from 1.27 Ghz to 2.8 GHz.

So if any of you guys are having trouble OCing your RAM to high clocks, try faster timings; they work just as well on AM2. Hope that helped.

 

[the Chase]

Thanks for the testing!