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OCZ SLI Ready Memory Review |
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Monday, 30 April 2007 |
 | | | | | To coincide with the launch of our new website, OCZ have generously donated some of their SLI-Ready DDR2 Memory for us to review. So before we even start, a big thanks to Joe at OCZ. Thanks! | | | |  | | | | | With the introduction of SLI technology, NVIDIA have brought a level of graphical prowess that we hadn't seen since the original implimentation of SLI from 3DFX. (Oh, how I miss my Voodoo2). With everything in our modern day computers getting faster and faster by the Mhz it's only natural that memory would soon follow suit. OCZ have obtained NVIDIA certification to provide the enthusiast crowd with SLI-Certified memory guaranteed to work flawlessy with SLI video card and system configurations.
The OCZ SLI-Ready memory line sports many of the features previous OCZ owners will recognize and continue to appreciate. The continued improvement of their XTC heatspreaders provide more than adequate heat dissipation and from both a far and up close provide eye candy that'll grab even the hard-of-seeing geeks attention. In addition, the new SLI-Ready memory continues to support OCZ's EVP (Extended Voltage Protection) which allows enthusiasts to crank up the voltage to above-normal limits without voiding their products warranty.
What does this SLI Certification mean? Well, it's simple really. NVIDIA have come up with a system that ensures everything in your brand spanking new nForce and SLI enabled system runs at their rated specifiications. In this instance, with an SLI MCP enabled nForce motherboard, your computer will detect that you have SLI-Certified memory installed, automatically configure the OCZ SLI memory modules to their optimum configurations via SPD profiles. This takes the guess work out of manual adjustments and effortlessy provides the enthusiast, gamer or general joe with the best possible configuration.
Ofcourse, we cannot forget that OCZ continue to offer Lifetime Warranty on their memory products, the OCZ SLI Certified memory is no exception to this rule.
| | |  | | | | | Before we get to the gritty details, numbers and all that other complicated jargon - let's take a minute to look at the kit, from the outside. | | | | | The Exterior | | | | | The OCZ SLI-Certified memory features a gloss-black finish, with the traditional XTC heatspreaders and an NVIDIA SLI-Ready badge placed all pretty like in the center of each module. The XTC heatspreaders function better than traditional heatspreaders, as the honeycomb design prevents pockets of warm air building up and generating unsafe temperatures. If you'd like to take a closer look at the sheer oh-la-la-ness of these modules, take a look at the OCZ Product Images. | | | | | EPP And You! | | | | | Enhanced Performance Profiles, or EPP for the geek-crowd. (It's ok, it's cool to be a geek. Really.) is a handy piece of technology that has one, simple goal. To enable anyone with these modules to get the best performance at the rated specifications possible. The memory modules are pre-programmed via the SPD with the rated specifications. (In this case, 800Mhz, 4-4-4-15 1T) Once an EPP nForce compatible motherboard boots up and detects the OCZ SLI-Certified memory, the EPP settings will automatically be applied and your system configured, without having to stumble around in the bios and go through a series of trial-and-error boot sequences. | | | | | Benchmarks | | | | | We will be using our main test bed system here at Overclockers Canada, I like to call him Fred. Fred consists of an eVGA 680i SLI motherboard, an Intel E6600 Core2Duo processor, two eVGA 8800GTX cards and a WD Raptor X 150GB drive. In order to benchmark the OCZ SLI-Certified Memory, we are going to use a variety of tools such as SiSoft Sandra, Everest & MemTach. | | | | | |  | | | As you can see above, the OCZ memory yeilds the best results. This is quite possibly due to the 1T vs 2T command rate. | | | | | |  | | | Again, OCZ has come out top with the lower latency than it's competitor. Not by a huge margin, but when it comes to memory benchmarks unless you're comparing different speeds then big difference-margins won't be seen. | | | | | |  | | | After running Everest's memory read benchmark it's clear that the OCZ SLI-Certified DDR2 memory has the advantage over it's competitor. Pulling almost an additional 150MB/S above the next leading SLI-Certified memory competitor. | | | | | |  | | | OCZ's SLI memory again tops it's next leading competitor by stomping it in the memory write tests. | | | | | |  | | | The margin on this final test is definately minimal, however OCZ pulls ahead again and pulls a better analysis than it's leading competitor. | | | |  | | | | | | When we initially strapped the OCZ SLI-Certified memory modules to our test bed, we certainly didn't expect such results. The 1T vs 2T Command Rate difference most definately seems to affect it's read/write and latency speeds and gives the OCZ modules a definite advantage over it's competitors.
We did manage to get great overclocking results too. However, we did have to lax the timings considerably in order to do so. We reached well over 1000Mhz but had to lower the command rate to 2T and thus we noticed an actual decrease in performance. After doing some research, it's been reported that similar results have been seen eslewhere also. Overall however, the units overclocked extremely well and provided additional throughput in both read and write benchmarks.
From start to finish, working with the OCZ SLI-Certified DDR2 memory modules has been nothing short of a pleasure. The exterior-styling combined with the additional performance gives you the added touch that even Pappa Joe would be impressed by.
The OCZ SLI-Certified DDR2 memory is backed by OCZ's lifetime warranty and their extended EVP coverage which allows enthusiasts to push the voltage up to 2.3V without voiding the product warranty.
With the command rate lower than it's current competitors, the obvious speed differences in both reading and writing, the lower latency, the beautiful exterior, the lifetime warranty AND the OCZ's EVP - the choice to use this memory is really a no brainer.
So what does that mean? Well, OCZ is the first manufacturer to recieve 2 of our hardware awards. Our new "Awesome" award and our Overclockers Canada Editors Choice award.
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