Conclusions
This is surely a very impressive performance from the OCZ Dual Channel Series EL-DDR, but you still may be thinking that the timings I used were particularly low? Well, to put your mind at rest, I also tested OCZ's "Vanilla" PC3500 512Mb sticks in this motherboard, and TwinMOS's plain PC3200 512Mb sticks - the OCZ manages to run a meagre DDR377 at 2.5-8-3-3, and the TwinMOS could JUST run at it's spec speed of DDR400, 2.5-8-3-3, but no higher. This is a VERY tough motherboard, and running high FSBs and high memory busses are fairly difficult, but very rewarding.
So is it worth your hard earned money? If you want the best Dual Channel memory money can buy, then in my mind, yes, definitely. It has made a world of difference to my system, especially to the overall stability. The high speeds that this RAM can run are pretty incredible, DDR470 (DDR460 at Cas 2.0!) is nothing to be sniffed at, but infact it was the motherboard that ran out of steam before the RAM, as I cannot POST at anything higher than DDR470 regardless of the fact that I can run DDR470 with 100% stability. Lowering the timings further did not help... suffice to say that the SiS655 chipset wasn't really designed to run such high memory speeds!!
What should you buy this stuff for? nForce 2 and SiS655 both spring to mind, and the upcoming Springdale and Canterwood chipsets will fly on this RAM - but to be honest I wouldn't bother with Granite Bay, as you will never achieve the FSBs required to take maximum advantage of such expensive memory, stick to something cheaper like plain DDR333 - but, if you want some of the best Dual Channel memory money can buy, then the OCZ PC3500 EL-DDR Dual Channel Series is definitely it!
Click for an explanation of our awards.
Highs
- VERY fast
- 230MHz at CAS 2.0
- Survived SiS655 (Nothing short of amazing)
- Good Quality Copper Heat Spreaders
- Lifetime Warranty
Lows
- Expensive
- Possibly identical to non-Dual Channel Series EL-DDR sticks
- SPD not as tweaked as Corsair's
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