Introduction:

For those people running their system at stock speed, close your browser now because this memory is not for you! OCZ is targeting the hardware enthusiast out there with their latest revision of this pair of memory sticks.

Rated at a default speed of 233Mhz at CL2.5 3-3-7, they come with a Lifetime Warranty and: "EVP®(Extended Voltage Protection) Technology allowing up to 2.9 volts DDR while maintaining full warranty", an excellent memory for overclockers so it seems!

The dual channel kit is packaged securely and also includes a case-badge!





The Gold series from OCZ are made for use with an Intel setup:



This means that the memory is capable of much higher FSB speeds (then the default 200Mhz) to accommodate the high bandwidth needs the P4 CPU requires!

Construction:

2 very shiny gold-layered heatspreaders are attached on each side of the memory stick, they are held into place by a heat-transferable layer and 2 clips.




Without even having installed this memory, it oozes quality and like most crows, I like shiny things ->

Gallery:

And what better way to show of this piece of craftsmanship, a gallery of pictures!















But what good is flashy looking memory if it doesn't deliver awesome performance? Let's find out if it is capable to make your P4 system run faster ->

Test Setup:

JMke's Test Setup
CPU	Pentium 4 "C" 2400Mhz
Mainboard	Asus P4C800
Cooling	Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu
Memory	2 * OCZ EL PC3700 Gold Rev.2 at 2.85v vdimm
Video	nVidia Geforce4 Ti4600

Benchmarks

I set out to find out how low I could go with the memory timings; I set the FSB speed to 200Mhz using 1:1 divider. My first attempts were unsuccessful, no matter what timings I chose the system refused to POST or would hang during boot. But I found out (thanks Bigtoe@Xtremesystems) what I was doing wrong. The Asus P4C enables PAT automatically when the FSB <= 200Mhz, this will set the RAS to CAS at 2. OCZ PC3700 did not work with this setting. So putting the PAT at standard instead of auto/turbo solved this issue, choosing memory timings CL2 2-3-5 the system booted up without problem and was stable up to 208Mhz.

Earlier PC3700+ memory had problems running at CL2 with such tight timings, but these sticks can handle it as long as you put RAS to CAS at 3.

Now that I found the maximum speed at tight timings, I went for the highest speed. At CL2.5 3-3-7 the system was ROCK stable at 250Mhz! That's PC4000 performance right there! In order to reach 255Mhz the timings went to CL3 4-4-8, this was the max speed with this memory at 2.85v vdimm voltage.

So let's find out what the sweet spot is of this system, my P4 2.4 "C" is no "high flyer", the CPU can reach 3200Mhz at default voltage, and 3270Mhz when I push 1.7v through the core (not something I like to do). This translates into an FSB of 260-265, the ideal memory setup would be of course ram doing ~265Mhz at CL2 2-2-5, there is no ram out there on the market that qualifies for these extreme conditions. Sure I've seen memory run at these speeds, but those are very rare finds and you have to increase the memory voltage up to dangerous heights to obtain these speeds (3.3+v vdimm).

So now that we have an idea of what we want to obtain, let's see what memory configuration delivers the best performance.

While we can get a general idea of the memory benchmark by using synthetic benchmarks, I find it is of value to include a game-benchmark which is known to be memory bandwidth sensitive: Quake 3 Arena.

All bars in BLUE: divider set to 1:1
All bars in RED: divider set to 5:4

So let’s start of with the classic one: Sisoft Sandra 2004



Higher Memory speed equals higher bandwidth in this benchmark, although the 255Mhz results are with very relax timings, they turn in the best results.

And now a pretty unknown benchmark called "Particle Fury". This little 3D application stresses the system and memory bus by drawing a fountain of particles on your screen as fast as possible. It provides a quick and easy way to verify if the changes you made to you memory subsystem have a positive or negative impact.





They reflect the results I got from Sisoft almost identically; the highest memory speed again takes the top performance crown. Almost I said, as you can see that CL2 @ 208Mhz using a 5:4 divider gives a higher result then CL2.5 @ 250Mz using 1:1 divider, the CPU does have a 120Mhz advantage in the CL2 config adding to the equation as to why it gave better results in this test.


Enough with the synthetic benchmarks, here some real-life application action: Quake 3 Arena




Test with both resolutions give the same results in the end.

1. CL2 2-3-5 @ 208
   
2. CL2.5 3-3-7 @ 250
   
3. CL3 4-4-8 @ 255
   

Let's wrap it all up in the conclusion ->

Conclusion:

OCZ delivers an impressive dual memory set with their PC3700 Gold series. This memory can handle tight timings at ~200Mhz speeds, while at the same time it will soar higher then its rated speed, reaching 250Mhz (PC4000) at good timings. This memory will allow you to find the sweet spot for your P4 system.

The added advantage of being able to use 2.9v on these sticks while still keeping your lifetime warranty make this memory set a very interesting deal for those seeking to increase their memory bandwidth!

I would like to thank Ryan from OCZ for giving Madshrimps the possibility test their highly acclaimed memory, if you have any questions or comments don't hesitate to drop them off right here(no reg. required)