DH Review: OCZ Gold series EL PC3200 GX XTC 2GB Kit

Zardon · Feb 19, 2006, 09:05 PM

In case you didnt know GX stands for "Gamers Extreme" and thats exactly the market OCZ are making these modules for ... Hardcore Gamers.

Grace delivers the goods and decides if these modules are really good for gamers and if they can still overclock like their more expensive relatives.

"The GX XTC modules certainly appear different than any other RAM currently available and are easily identifiable by their heatspreaders. The new XTC heatspreaders from OCZ are supposed to enhance the cooling of the modules, but they certainly enhance the appearance as well. The heatspreaders glint like gold, which makes them look extremely glamorous. The heatspreaders are totally covered by holes forming a honeycomb design. This design allows for superior cooling performance and OCZ dubs it XTC (xtreme thermal convection)."

Read the review here

Drakon · Feb 19, 2006, 09:15 PM

Nice review, Grace. It's strange that the ram wasn't stable at anything below 2-3-3-6. I've got mine running at 2-3-2-8 and it's memtest and prime '95 stable.

Zardon · Feb 19, 2006, 09:21 PM

have you the same motherboard?

germanjulian · Feb 19, 2006, 09:28 PM

heatspreaders doooooooooooooooooo..........
NOTHING!

maybe 10Mhz more oc.

the only reason it was introduced was to protect the chips from your hands and those nasty little charges

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29598

Grace · Feb 19, 2006, 09:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drakon

Nice review, Grace. It's strange that the ram wasn't stable at anything below 2-3-3-6. I've got mine running at 2-3-2-8 and it's memtest and prime '95 stable.

This is the DFI nF4 Ultra-D we are talking about, it is the strangest motherboard when it comes to RAM. Things like....

1) Placing the RAM in the yellow slots would hinder the OC performance by 30-40MHz

2) The system will not post if you set 2/4/4/8 timings

3) The system will not post if you are using a UTT specific Beta BIOS (at least the early ones)

...are rather common.

(And the effects vary depending on the set of RAM modules you are using!)

Chaos · Feb 19, 2006, 09:51 PM

I find that the DFI boards are so fussy when it comes to RAM I tried the same board when i built my current system and with the (2 x 512MB) Corsair CMX512-3200C2 it was a nightmare. I fought with it for a few days then just returned the board for the MSI board I am currently using. But at the same time I see many people that use those DFI boards and get sweet results

Grace · Feb 19, 2006, 10:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by germanjulian

heatspreaders doooooooooooooooooo..........
NOTHING!

maybe 10Mhz more oc.

Some people KILL for 10 more MHz.

Seriously, I don't believe that they do much, but they look much better than plain modules.

Drakon · Feb 19, 2006, 11:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zardon

have you the same motherboard?

Yep. But I'm using 704-2 bios modified by Big Tony, so maybe that has something to do with it...

Necrosis · Feb 19, 2006, 11:59 PM

I have the same board, there is a huge post about ram settings for this board (DFI Street). It's required reading even before you think about installing it.

Falstaff · Feb 20, 2006, 04:35 AM

Christ, buying this product requires a huge time investment in mobo tech, I better just lay off and stay in the middle of the road...thanx anyway..
BTW...great review..

The_Neon_Cowboy · Feb 20, 2006, 04:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by germanjulian

heatspreaders doooooooooooooooooo..........
NOTHING!

maybe 10Mhz more oc.

the only reason it was introduced was to protect the chips from your hands and those nasty little charges

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29598

Also heat = death
even slightly less heat = slightly longer life

easepially good when your o/c is sucking the life out of it

I still think thier not useing the most optumal heat sinks as there
no doubt thier not pulling away as much heat as they could....

Necrosis · Feb 20, 2006, 05:24 AM

I wonder why they never sell ram /w heatsinks? You can buy them aftermarket but still...

Drakon · Feb 20, 2006, 06:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Necrosis

I have the same board, there is a huge post about ram settings for this board (DFI Street). It's required reading even before you think about installing it.

Hmmm, I got my ram settings from RyderOCZ. They work so far. I'll see how they hold up once I OC my rig

SFOSOK · Feb 20, 2006, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grace

This is the DFI nF4 Ultra-D we are talking about, it is the strangest motherboard when it comes to RAM. Things like....

1) Placing the RAM in the yellow slots would hinder the OC performance by 30-40MHz

2) The system will not post if you set 2/4/4/8 timings

3) The system will not post if you are using a UTT specific Beta BIOS (at least the early ones)

...are rather common.

(And the effects vary depending on the set of RAM modules you are using!)

I can pretty much vouch for all of that my DFI NF4 UT SLI-DR was able to overclock my OCZ platinum Ram (similar to these) quite a bit better in the other slots. Also after switch the ram around let me take it up to DDR 490 at 2.5-3-3-5 but if I set it to 3-4-4-8 I could not even get it anywhere near DDR500.

Might be something weird with OCZ's mem that is not meant for Overclocking and the DFI boards hmm.

IvanV · Feb 20, 2006, 12:49 PM

Nice review, Grace.
Still, I wish you went through a bit more trouble and tested with some real-world applications, because they show the actual benefit of overclocking better then the syntetical ones. I've recently read an article in which they tested a kit on various frequencies from 400 to 700MHz, and, although it wasn't always the fastest, on the overal the best choice was to set it to 466MHz with 2-2-2 timings.

Grace · Feb 20, 2006, 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IvanV

Nice review, Grace.
Still, I wish you went through a bit more trouble and tested with some real-world applications, because they show the actual benefit of overclocking better then the syntetical ones. I've recently read an article in which they tested a kit on various frequencies from 400 to 700MHz, and, although it wasn't always the fastest, on the overal the best choice was to set it to 466MHz with 2-2-2 timings.

Thanks Ivan.

I have thought of what you suggest, but it seemed illogical in my head since real world applications depend on other hardware components way too much. Every time I want to reach a specific RAM speed, the CPU and HTT speeds vary, so there cannot be any direct comparison between the results.

Now that you mentioned it though, I thought of it some more and maybe I can stick the CPU at 300MHz HTT and use the dividers next time, but still I won't be able to have the RAM running exactly at the speed I want. For example, I will be able to run the RAM at 233MHz and 250MHz through the dividers alone, but not at 242MHz exactly (without changing the CPU speed) which can be the limit of 2.5/3/3/6 timings. I usually want to run the RAM at its limit, not provide comparisons between the results/timings.

I need to think about this a bit more. Any suggestions welcome!

Judas · Feb 20, 2006, 07:24 PM

These sticks have been ordered.... 2 2gb kits

.....

IvanV · Feb 20, 2006, 07:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grace

Thanks Ivan.

I have thought of what you suggest, but it seemed illogical in my head since real world applications depend on other hardware components way too much. Every time I want to reach a specific RAM speed, the CPU and HTT speeds vary, so there cannot be any direct comparison between the results.

Now that you mentioned it though, I thought of it some more and maybe I can stick the CPU at 300MHz HTT and use the dividers next time, but still I won't be able to have the RAM running exactly at the speed I want. For example, I will be able to run the RAM at 233MHz and 250MHz through the dividers alone, but not at 242MHz exactly (without changing the CPU speed) which can be the limit of 2.5/3/3/6 timings. I usually want to run the RAM at its limit, not provide comparisons between the results/timings.

I need to think about this a bit more. Any suggestions welcome!

Yes, it is tricky. After thinking about it, I had to agree that you had a more difficult task than the guys who wrote that article: they were only trying to see how big is the benefit of very high frequencies, and not necessarily to find the absolute maximum for each latency, so they were able to keep their FX-57's frequency unchanged (2795-2805MHz).
So, in the end, I'd say that you were right. You showed what that memory is capable of, but everyone has to see for oneself what works best on their PCs and for their application.

SFOSOK · Feb 21, 2006, 01:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judas

These sticks have been ordered.... 2 2gb kits

.....

4 gigs, my god!

Judas · Feb 21, 2006, 03:04 AM

wha?

i managed to get my hands on 4 2gb kits and my hands on a dual cpu dual opteron motherboard and cpu's..... 8gb of ram there.... and 8.8ghz of processing power....

course only a x700pro PCI-EX card at the time

.... boy, nothing beat that bloody sucker..... 4 threads and everything was ZIPPY in XP 64bit

Feb 19, 2006, 09:05 PM	#1
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 177	DH Review: OCZ Gold series EL PC3200 GX XTC 2GB Kit In case you didnt know GX stands for "Gamers Extreme" and thats exactly the market OCZ are making these modules for ... Hardcore Gamers. Grace delivers the goods and decides if these modules are really good for gamers and if they can still overclock like their more expensive relatives. "The GX XTC modules certainly appear different than any other RAM currently available and are easily identifiable by their heatspreaders. The new XTC heatspreaders from OCZ are supposed to enhance the cooling of the modules, but they certainly enhance the appearance as well. The heatspreaders glint like gold, which makes them look extremely glamorous. The heatspreaders are totally covered by holes forming a honeycomb design. This design allows for superior cooling performance and OCZ dubs it XTC (xtreme thermal convection)." Read the review here

Feb 19, 2006, 09:28 PM	#4
germanjulian Back in London Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: London Posts: 1,797 Rep Power: 0	heatspreaders doooooooooooooooooo.......... NOTHING! maybe 10Mhz more oc. the only reason it was introduced was to protect the chips from your hands and those nasty little charges http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29598 __________________ /\|\ Asus P5W DH Deluxe, Intel C2D E6600, 2GB Corsair XMS2-6400C4 DDR2, E-VGA GeForce 7800 GT, Creative X-Fi Extreme Music, 500GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA, Lian Li PC-V1100 Aluminum Case Black, etc. http://germanjulian.com /\|\ Last edited by germanjulian; Feb 19, 2006 at 09:38 PM.

Feb 19, 2006, 09:51 PM	#6
Chaos Number Nine Join Date: May 2002 Location: Nova Scotia Posts: 5,269 Rep Power: 165 System Specs	I find that the DFI boards are so fussy when it comes to RAM I tried the same board when i built my current system and with the (2 x 512MB) Corsair CMX512-3200C2 it was a nightmare. I fought with it for a few days then just returned the board for the MSI board I am currently using. But at the same time I see many people that use those DFI boards and get sweet results __________________

Feb 20, 2006, 04:35 AM	#10
Falstaff Old Codger Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: USAFA Posts: 19,047 Rep Power: 206	Christ, buying this product requires a huge time investment in mobo tech, I better just lay off and stay in the middle of the road...thanx anyway.. BTW...great review.. __________________ "Inspiration is always a surprising visitor."

Feb 20, 2006, 12:49 PM	#15
IvanV HH Assassin Guild Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 5,652 Rep Power: 280 System Specs	Nice review, Grace. Still, I wish you went through a bit more trouble and tested with some real-world applications, because they show the actual benefit of overclocking better then the syntetical ones. I've recently read an article in which they tested a kit on various frequencies from 400 to 700MHz, and, although it wasn't always the fastest, on the overal the best choice was to set it to 466MHz with 2-2-2 timings. __________________ Our Folding@home stats:

Feb 19, 2006, 09:15 PM	#2
Drakon DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Floatin'... Posts: 4,957 Rep Power: 56	Nice review, Grace. It's strange that the ram wasn't stable at anything below 2-3-3-6. I've got mine running at 2-3-2-8 and it's memtest and prime '95 stable.

Feb 19, 2006, 09:21 PM	Thread Starter #3
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 177	have you the same motherboard?

Feb 19, 2006, 11:59 PM	#9
Necrosis HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Ohio Posts: 8,838 Rep Power: 129 System Specs	I have the same board, there is a huge post about ram settings for this board (DFI Street). It's required reading even before you think about installing it.

Feb 20, 2006, 05:24 AM	#12
Necrosis HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Ohio Posts: 8,838 Rep Power: 129 System Specs	I wonder why they never sell ram /w heatsinks? You can buy them aftermarket but still...