System setup and notes
HEXUS test PC and memory specs
| Memory | Patriot PDC22G9200ELK | Corsair DOMINATOR TWIN2X2048-10000C5DF | Kingston HyperX KHX9600D2K2/2G | OCZ Reaper HPC Edition PC2-9200 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Memory Timings and Speed | 1150MHz, 5-5-5-12 2T | 1250MHz, 5-5-5-18 2T | 1200MHz, 5-5-5-15 2T | 1150MHz, 5-5-5-18 2T |
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (3.00/3.019GHz, 4MiB L2 cache, 1333/1342MHz FSB, LGA775) - see notes below | |||
| Motherboard | eVGA NF68 (NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI) | |||
| BIOS revision | 691N0P20 | |||
| Graphics Card | 2x Asus GeForce 7900GTX 512MB (SLI ENABLED) | |||
| Disk drive(s) | Seagate 160GB SATAII (ST3160812AS) | |||
| Mainboard software | NVIDIA platform driver 9.53 | |||
| Graphics driver | ForceWare 91.47 | |||
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional 32-bit with SP2 | |||
| Approx price at time of writing | £158 | £469 | £137 | £159 |
Tests
| 2D Benchmarks | ScienceMark Memory Bandwidth ScienceMark Memory Latency CPU-Z Latency SiSoft Sandra Memory Bandwidth HEXUS DivX encoding |
|---|
| 3D Benchmarks | Far Cry v1.33 Quake 4 v1.30 |
|---|
Setup notes
The eVGA NF68 motherboard was chosen because its NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI chipset allows independent setting of the speed of the memory and the front side bus.
Other chipsets, such as Intel's P965 and P35, don't have that ability, so the memory speeds available are dictated by speed set for the front side bus and the memory-multipliers offered by the chipset.
We've added in results from other high-speed memory we tested recently. Click back to that review to see how slower-clocked PC6400 memory compares.
For the Patriot and OCZ modules, we had to run the CPU at 3019MHz with a 1342MHz
FSB
- because of the memories' peculiar speed-grade
and because
of chipset limitations.
For the Corsair and Kingston memory modules, the CPU was run at 3000MHz with a 1333MHz FSB (rather
than
the stock 2933MHz frequency with a 1066MHz FSB).
For our standard tests, the Corsair DOMINATOR XMS2-10000 was run at 2.4V - as per spec - whilst all others were run at 2.3V.
Temperatures
| Memory | Patriot PDC22G9200ELK | Corsair
DOMINATOR XMS2-10000 (with DOMINATOR Airflow fan) |
Corsair DOMINATOR
XMS2-10000 (without DOMINATOR Airflow fan) |
Kingston HyperX KHX9600D2K2/2G | OCZ Reaper HPC Edition PC2-9200 |
| Ambient temperature | 24C | 23C | 22.5C | 19.5C | 24C |
| Temperature after 30 minute stability test | 38C | 32.5C | 37.5C | 39.5C | 36.5C |
| Temperature delta | 14C | 9.5C | 15C | 20C | 12.5C |
Considering that no extra airflow is directed at the Patriot modules, the heatspreaders perform well, beating out the Kingston modules and almost matching the heatpipe-clad OCZ Reapers.