High-capacity PC memory pitches OCZ versus Geil

IS 2GB RAM enough for your brand new high end PC? Well, of course it isn't, if you have to run Windoze Vi$ta with any decent app.

New "OS" requirements aside, while games aren't exactly benefiting yet from memory above 2 GB, there are quite a few non gaming 'enthusiast' PC users - those handling 3-D, scientific calculations, large photo editing, not to mention multimedia content creation - who would very directly benefit from more memory. So, how about two 2 GB DIMMs in a kit? Or, why no, four 2 GB DIMM kit for all of 8 GB RAM on the desktop? And, what if you could have all those GB for just around US$ 500, from more than one vendor?

Two interesting kits just reached my place - one from Geil, the "Black Dragon" 4 x 2 GB kit, the other OCZ Platinum Vista Performance Edition 2 x 2 GB kit. Both are rated as DDR2-800, and that's there the similarities end.

As you can see, the Geil kit employs zero heat spreaders - on one side, it's a potential heat issue if overclocking, on the other side, well you can always spend more money on customised heat spreaders or other cooling like, say, Thermaltake water cooling blocks for those DIMMs, if you could handle four sets of tubes in and out of memory modules alone.

OCZ comes with their popular platinum-mirrored XTC (Xtreme Thermal Convection) heat spreaders on the DIMMs instead. Heat-wise they did help with somewhat less heat felt to the touch compared to Geil, but the difference isn't much.

And, of course, Black Dragon is a 4-DIMM set by default - good enough for, say AMD QuadFX or filling in all the DIMM sockets on any Intel-based PC board around. In the case of OCZ, simply get two 2-DIMM kits.

What about achievable timings? For this quick look, I ran both kits on Asus P5K Deluxe, a freshly updated Intel P35-based board with a new BIOS that enabled 1T command issue on both of these DIMMs. The QX6800 quad core CPU ran at 3.2 GHz and FSB1600, running memory in sync.

Interestingly, on this board, both kits couldn't move much beyond their declared latency timings of 5-5-5 for Geil and 5-4-4 for OCZ. The latter one proved its slight speed advantages. In 2-DIMM identical configurations, at 2 volts, OCZ ran stable at 5-4-4-9, while Geil was at 5-5-5-10, and both passed the Suse Linux boot CD memory test. At 2.05 volts, OCZ could manage 5-4-4-8, but it didn't pass the Suse memtest until the 2.1 volt change. Geil's timing went to 5-5-5-9 at 2.1 volts.

When trying Geil Black Dragon in the full 4-DIMM 8 GB configuration, the 5-5-5 timings were still OK, however 2T command rate was needed.

I also tried both DIMMs with DDR2-800 CL4 settings, neither booted, even when pushing voltage to 2.2 volts. Why not try even higher voltage then? Well, at this stage, I feel these high capacity kits are more likely to be used by more 'serious' users, who I assume would want these modules to run stable and as much as possible error-free for some time - and no, these are no old Micron dies that could take 2.5 volts or so. Therefore, 2.2 volts was my self-imposed limit on these kit.

In summary, before pushing them further to their true limits on Asus Striker Extreme this weekend with WinXP, I'd say that these early affordable 2 GB memory modules don't have the overclocking headroom anywhere near their 1 GB cousins with their CL 3-3-3-5 DDR2-800 timings, and that upping the voltage seems to help a bit less than before - OCZ slightly outperformed Geil here. However, they seem to run stable at DDR2-800 with FSB1600 Intel QC, and that's a good start for affordable yet reasonably fast 8 GB in your PC. ?