Test Settings: Overclocking Comparison
DDR3 still hasn’t worked its way down to mainstream price levels, and the main reason a buyer would pay relatively-high DDR3 prices is to achieve a similarly-high overclock without "hitting the wall" on memory speed. One could, of course, pay the astronomically high prices of DDR3-1800 or even faster overclock-validated extreme-enthusiast parts, but we wanted to see how far these less-expensive kits would go.
Newer platform components may be available, but the best overclocking motherboards use Intel P35 chipsets while the same company’s Core 2 Duo processors withstand much greater bus speeds than its Core 2 Quads. We dug into the parts bin to retrieve the most overclockable parts regardless of age.
| Overclocking System Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-P35T-DQ6, Rev. 1.0
Intel P35, BIOS F5c (10/26/2007) |
| Socket 775 Processor | Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 "Conroe"
(FSB-1333, 65 nm, 2.67 GHz, 4 MB L2 Cache) |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital WD1500ADFD-00NLR1, Firmware: 20.07P20
150 GB, 10,000 RPM, 16 MB cache, SATA/150 |
| Graphics Card | Foxconn GeForce 8800GTX, P/N: FV-N88XMAD2-OD
NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX - 768 MB |
| Power Supply | OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI - 700W |
| System Software & Drivers | |
| OS | Windows XP Professional 5.10.2600, Service Pack 2 |
| DirectX Version | 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904) |
| Platform Drivers | Intel INF 8.3.1.1009 |
| Graphics Driver | NVIDIA Forceware 163.75 |
Our Intel Core 2 Duo sample is held in high esteem for reaching 520-MHz FSB at its default 8x multiplier and at least 540-MHz FSB using a 6x multiplier on top boards. Using the P35 chipset’s highest memory ratio, this allows a 6x CPU multiplier to reach for data rates of 2160 MHz!
Of course, we’d need a motherboard that offered top memory stability, and the most appropriate part we’ve found for this type of testing is Gigabyte’s GA-P35T-DQ6.
In order to reach a variety of memory speeds at a fixed 6x multiplier, we needed to alter the CPU speed for each test. The change in CPU speed has an overwhelming effect on a wide range of benchmarks, so we had to limit ourselves to memory bandwidth benchmarks in the overclocking portion of today’s comparison.
| Overclocking Benchmarks | |
|---|---|
| PCMark05 Pro | Version: 1.1.0
Memory Tests Windows Media Player 10.00.00.3646 Windows Media Encoder 9.00.00.2980 |
| SiSoftware Sandra 2005 | Version 2005.7.10.60
Memory Test = Bandwidth Benchmark |
We’ll throw a more comprehensive set of benchmarks into our latency tests.
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One part on page 3 is a bit confusing to me:
"Because cycle time is the inverse of clock speed (1/2 of DDR data rates), the DDR-333 reference clock cycled every six nanoseconds, DDR2-667 every three nanoseconds and DDR3-1333 every 1.5 nanoseconds. Latency is measured in clock cycles, and two 6ns cycles occur in the same time as four 3ns cycles or eight 1.5ns cycles. If you still have your doubts, do the math!"
If I am reading this right, cycle time is the inverse of (1/2)*(DDR Data Rate or 333 for example). So 1/((1/2)*333)=.006006006 which rounds to 6 milli-seconds, not 6 nano-seconds.
Sorry for my confusion, but could someone please clarify for me?
I can not clarify...this is a good article, but im still anoyed at the spelling and punctuation in the articles...Im not one for utmost spelling and punction in informall chatting messaging etc (like this) but i am when its a published article, you wouldnt find a harry potter novel with spelling mistakes in it....
"and DDR3-1600 is called PC2-12800." Its surposed to say, PC3-12800 not...PC2-12800
On the first page mid way down ^^^
Therlian you got it wrong. Generally, period (cycle time) it's the inverse of frequency (clock speed). But as DDR stands for Dual Data Rate, its real frequency is 1/2 of the specified clock speed. What you did wrong it's that you didn't take in account that DDR-333 means a data rate of 333 MEGA-hertz. Because a hertz is the inverse of a second you get: 1/((1/2)*333 MHz)=.006 micro- seconds, which is equal to 6 nano-seconds. Hope I made it clear for you.
I see now danmari. Thanks for pointing that out. I don't know why I didn't think about the 333 being MHz as opposed to Hz.
"I can not clarify...this is a good article, but im still anoyed at the spelling and punctuation in the articles...Im not one for utmost spelling and punction in informall chatting messaging etc (like this) but i am when its a published article, you wouldnt find a harry potter novel with spelling mistakes in it...."
Sorry but when you make THAT many mistakes in your own post, you have no right to talk about spelling mistakes. The mistake you mention is a typo (hitting a wrong key) not a spelling error.
You however manage to spell "annoyed", "informal", and "supposed" wrongly. You also managed to spell "punctuation" wrongly (the second time.. not sure how you can spell it right the first time and wrong the second..)
If you don't know how to spell, then don't flame others for it.
anyone with notes PC2100,PC3200,PC4200,PC5300?
"Intel’s current fastest Front Side Bus (FSB) uses a 1333-MHz data rate"
No, that's not right!
It's 1600MHz (native) for a Socket 775 CPU and socket 771, and if you didn't notice, some people overclock, big time!
Although DDR3 is touted as using 1.50V, several modules use more!
The same is true of DDR2. In this article DDR2 is described as being 1.8V. In my experience most of the modules are 1.9V and some are higher.