OCZ Voltage eXtreme - Burn in
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Before we go jump into testing, OCZ recommends a nice burn in for the memory to maximize the speed while minimizing the voltage and latency. There is no hands down best way to do it; even the people at OCZ have varying recommended ways of burning in. Some recommend running Memtest86 for 24 hours at 2-2-2, 200 MHz, and with 3.3 volts.
The way I did was six hours of Memtest86 at the highest stable FSB with 3.25 volts, followed by two hours of 3DMark; I let it take a break for a few hours, and then repeated. This allows the memory to have a cool down period. Whether you do straight Memtest, or the way I did it, you need to have a fan circulating the air around the memory. When putting constant stress on this memory, it gets really hot, which causes instability. Before I burned them in I could only reach 235 MHz at 2-2-2-5.
Testing
While memory works in nearly every board that supports that type of memory, OCZ VX seems to play with the NF3 and NF4 best. I'm not saying they suck on Intel boards; it's just that Intel's chipset’s memory controller isn’t on the same page as the Nvidia chipsets. The bigger problem isn’t the chip set, it's getting enough volts to make them fly. You’ll find many different reviews of this memory on AMD motherboards, but not so many on Intel systems, so I will throw this memory into my Pentium 4 computer. OCZ says that you can still get good clocks on Intel computers; the tests will tell the tale.
Now it's time to find some competition for the VX. What I need is some memory that everyone knows, that can take high volts and has low latency. How about some BH-5? Until recently it was the be-all end-all for DDR memory. I thought this would be a great benchmark; could the VX knock the BH-5 off the throne as king DDR?
My BH-5 isn’t a very good overclocker. It can only get up to 225 MHz on good days. I have two 512 MB sticks, which tend not to overclock as well as the 256MB sticks. There are people that have 512MB sticks that are capable of speeds similar to those achieved by the VX, though finding a Bh-5 that can do that might be harder.
The VX was easily capable of these speeds and then some; you can find out how fast I could get the VX later on. I ran the RAM at speeds that the BH-5 could take; it would have been unfair to run the VX higher. All the stock tests were run with a 1:1 divider, meaning the memory is running at the same speed the as the Front Side Bus, 200 MHz. I also ran the same tests with a slight overclock; the FSB then was 225 MHz.
Here’s the system I used for testing:
- Abit AI7
- Pentium 4 2.6c
- Nvidia 6800
- Samsung 120 GB SATA HD
- Kingston Hyper X BH-5
- OCZ VX PC3200
One of the up sides to the Ai7 is that, right out of the box, you can pump 3.2 volts into the memory before any type of modding is needed. The VX loves and needs high volts, so this was a match made in Intel heaven. If you are looking at this RAM, and you don’t have the volts, you can get the DDR Booster made by OCZ; just check the motherboard's compatibility.
Next: Test Results: Sandra, Everest >>
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