Where can I find memory benchmarks?

[Wonderwill]

Hey does anyone know where I can find some benchmarks for latency and speed? I want to know if getting 800 will really improve non-overclocked performance over 667.

Thanks

 

[Mondoman]

It should for a Core 2 Duo system: http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&number=1&artpage=1962&articID=472

 

[Wonderwill]

Okay some of those benchmarks didn't make any sense... EX: 667 5-5-5-15 beating 800 4-4-4-12, but I guess that's just the way it is. My next question is: Should I overclock my memory to 800 and tighten timings? I have seen many reviews on it with people that had success. I have 1 GB Wintec Ampo DDR2 667, currently with 5-5-5-15 timings.

 

[Mondoman]

Okay some of those benchmarks didn't make any sense... EX: 667 5-5-5-15 beating 800 4-4-4-12,...

There aren't any such results in the article I linked to. In fairness, the wording of the graphs is not always very good; for some of them the best score is the lowest (bar furthest to the left), so you might want to re-read the graphs.

Should I overclock my memory to 800 and tighten timings?

I don't know what CPU and MB you have, but my general answer would be "yes"; it doesn't hurt to experiment.

 

[Wonderwill]

No it was right to left, on the second page w/super pi. You think the memory will overheat if I overclock it? I have a Centurion 5 and the memory has a heat spreader... actually maybe 123 Mhz won't make much of a difference heat wise.

Oh BTW I have an ECS P965T-A and an E6600. Actually the ECS (Which was free) has moderate OCing abilities.

 

[Mondoman]

No it was right to left, on the second page w/super pi.

Like I said, the wording on the graph is very confusing, but it shows the DDR2-667 CL5 being the 2nd *worst*, better only than DDR2-400 CL5. The DDR2-800 CL4 is the *best* of all of them. Shorter times (faster completion of benchmark) are better; shorter times are to the left of the graph, longer times are to the right.

You think the memory will overheat if I overclock it?

It shouldn't. Most of the heat is carried away through the metal traces to the MB, anyway (the spreader doesn't do much if the chips are in [non-heat-conductive] plastic packaging, which almost all are).

 

[Wonderwill]

Oh srry I get it now. I overclocked the RAM to 800 for about an hour and tested it with no problems... but I didn't see anything on the plus side either. Then I tried underclocking it to 533 and tightening timings to CL4, but didn't see a difference either, so I put it back to 667. Now I know if I can overclock to 400x9 if I want. Thanks for the help!

 

[Mondoman]

Yep, as you've found, the big (noticeable) performance boosts usually come from speeding up the CPU, then making sure the other components can "feed" it at the CPU's maximum rate.