OCZ DDR3 PC3 12800 Platinum 6GB Low Voltage Triple Channel Review

ccokeman - February 25, 2009
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When it comes time to purchase your new memory modules, most people look to review sites to get a good idea on the performance capabilities of the memory they want to buy. Why, you ask? So they don't have to go through the endless buy it and return or sell it routine to find the set of their dreams. Hey, we do it for you! How? By testing the memory with a series of benchmarks that show some of the capabilities of the system memory. Synthetic benchmarks as well as real gameplay are used to show the capabilities. Also, there are comparisons to other performance modules, just so that this is not a one-sided affair. That just would not do, and offers up only the knowledge of what the featured product can do.

Testing Setup:

CPU:Intel Core I7 920
Motherboard:MSI X58 Eclipse
Memory: OCZ PC312800 1600MHz 7-7-7-20
Video Card(s): Nvidia GTX 260-216
Power Supply: Mushkin 800watt Modular Power supply
Hard Drive: Seagate 1 TB 7200.11 SATA
Opticals:Asus DVD-R
O/S: Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1

Comparison Modules:

Comparison Module #1: Mushkin HP3 12800 3x2GB 1600 MHZ 9-8-7-20
Comparison Module #2: Patriot Viper Series DDR3-10666 3x2GB 1600MHz 9-9-8-24

CPU-Z: This application shows us the settings that we have chosen in the BIOS. Items shown in this application include CPU speed and bus settings, motherboard manufacturer, BIOS revisions, memory timings, and SPD chip information.

Task Manager: We use this utility to show physical memory, kernel memory, page file, and processor usage.

Overclocking:

Overclocked settings:

Processor: Intel Core I7 920 158x20
Memory: OCZ Platinum PC3 12800 9-8-7-28 950MHz 1.7 volts

The OCZ PC3 12800 3x2GB kit comes with relatively tight timings of 7-7-7 at the 800FSB mark. It would seem that this would be difficult to improve upon, and it was to a point. I started pushing in larger increments initially but even at the 1.7 volts it took to reach 1600MHz at the delivered 7-7-7-24 timings I was only able to gain another 30MHz. Leaving the voltage at 1.7 I bumped the Cas latency to 8 and was able to reach 900 MHZ at 8-8-7-24. I could boot into windows as high as 920MHz but just did not have enough stability for the benchmarking. With the final push on, I changed the Cas latency to 9 and was rewarded with 950MHz(1900Mhz) at 9-8-7-28 with the same 1.7 volts I used throughout the testing. To reach this level I made adjustments to the QPI voltage, the IOH and ICH voltages. Seeing Cas 8 at over 900MHz without massive volts was pretty sick. Sure there are sets of memory out there capable of higher speeds with tighter timings, but you pay through the nose for them. For the 150 dollars this set will cost you, the overclocking potential is there.