4GB OCZ PC3700 EB Platinum memory configured at 3-3-2-8

THE CHAPS from OCZ technology sent us four sticks of 1GB Platinum Edition PC3700 EB dual channel memory working at 3-3-2-8 timings and using the famous XTC head spreads.

These platinum modules are the lightest modules and compared with previous metal plated OCZ or Corsair memory, this is the feather-light category.

We'd had an idea to try out a modern motherboard with 4GB of memory, as this is what the near future brings. Both Nvidia and ATI say their latest chipsets support 4GB of memory and that this would be recommended for super high-end gamers, as those chaps already have 2GB in their machines. You already need 2GB memory to smoothly play Battlefield 2 or FEAR at super high-end settings although both will work with far less than that.

However, when we tried this nice chunk of memory in Asus A8N Platinum SLI motherboard we discovered that Windows XP 32-bit won't address more than 3072MB memory. The motherboard and chipset will recognize the full 4GB memory and tools such as CPUZ will tell you that you physically have 4GB memory but that only 3GB will work.

We'd been looking forward to seeing the four memory modules working at 3-3-2-8, even overclocked to 454MHz. Sigh.

Since this is not a memory, chipset or motherboard limitation, it is the Windows 32-bit addressing issue, you'll want to consider Windows 64-bit for the time being, or Windows Vista once it is available. We know that Windows Vista or Windows 64-Bit will both address and show the whole pack of 4GB memory.

We have to say that we were very happy overclocking 4GB of this memory as the Athlon 0.13? based Hammer 4000+ worked from 2400MHz to 2640MHz at 220x12 without any voltage tweaks. We are pretty sure that this memory will work at these timings even at 233 MHz FSB.
Testing by Sanjin Rados and Fuad Abazovic. ?