Patriot DDR400 2-2-2/DDR533 3-4-4: Performance AND Value
by Wesley Fink on April 8, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Memory
Since it was first introduced by Corsair almost a year ago, memory based on Samsung TCCD chips has become the performance standard for DDR memory. As we saw in our roundup of memory for the AMD Athlon 64, Samsung TCCD also performs particularly well on the Athlon 64 with the on-chip memory controller. Almost every memory manufacturer now has a version of its own TCCD memory. In our recent reviews, we have seen TCCD from Corsair, G. Skill, Geil, Mushkin, OCZ, and PQI. All of the TCCD-based memory performs well, with the best performance coming from TCCD based on the Brainpower PCB. While Samsung TCCD has recently been challenged by Crucial Ballistix and the revival of Winbond parts in OCZ VX and the new BH5 Value RAM, there is no doubt that in most systems, at the voltage ranges seen in most motherboards, TCCD-based memory is the standard.
Into this climate, PDP Systems has introduced its own Samsung TCCD memory built on the Brainpower PCB. Patriot has chosen to rate the PC3200+XBLK at two different speeds: DDR400 at 2-2-2-5 and DDR533 at 3-4-4-8. This is quite a broad range and we will see if the memory meets or exceeds those ratings. The Patriot memory also stands out from the TCCD crowd by being the most reasonably priced TCCD that we could find on the web. At around $225 for a 1GB (512MB x 2) pair, the Patriot is even cheaper than the lowest-priced G. Skill at the vendors where we checked. Since the largest barrier to TCCD pricing is the actual cost of the chips from Samsung, reportedly about $6 per chip (or $190 for 32 chips for a 1GB pair), then Patriot is very near the lowest price currently possible for TCCD modules.
The question, of course, is how the Patriot performs compared to other TCCD-based memory. It has the right stuff in its design, but does it deliver in the all-important performance arena?
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Reapsy00 - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
I just got this ram for my nforce2 system :DAuric - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link
Article seems to imply these are new but they have been available since last Autumn. Also, they are tested at five performance ratings, not two, which eliminates much of the messin' when overclocking the FSB/CPU.http://www.pdpsys.com/products/PDC1G512G3200+XBLK....
chennhui - Sunday, April 10, 2005 - link
Dear Wesley Fink, May I know the memory timing used for PDP at highest performance 315, i.e. tRFC, tRRD, tWR,tWTR, tRTW, tREF, DQS, Drive strenght ect. If it is set to Auto, could you please read the value with Athlon64 Tweaker? :-) Does 315MHz 1:1 passed memtest test 8 and prime95 stress test? This is because I am running PDP stable at 289MHz, 3.0-4-4-10 Thanks.KayKay - Friday, April 8, 2005 - link
Any idea if this product is sold in Canada? I really like the balance of value and performance.Wesley Fink - Friday, April 8, 2005 - link
#16 - It is XBLK as you found, and the article has been updated. My tests for dyslexia are next week :-)ozzimark - Friday, April 8, 2005 - link
It brought a tear to my eye that you guys have already gotten the Everest benchmarks worked into the review. :)though, out of curiosity, do you plan to go back with the ram you tested previously on the dfi and add the everest scores to them? i'm sure it'll take up quite a bit of time though :/
sonicDivx - Friday, April 8, 2005 - link
XBLK is what it is.I currently use it an hit the following stable.
MBD: MSI NEO2
Memory: 280 2.5-3-4-7 2.8v 1:1 ratio
Wish had the DFI board I think with 2.9 I could hit 290. I have hit 282 with 2.5-4-4 2.85v but that is really the limit. with my NEO2.
Its nice memory, when I purchased had gotten it for 186 :)
wildguy2k - Friday, April 8, 2005 - link
Dunno if there are 2 different kinds, but throughout the article, you refer to it as XLBK, & the only results I can find price-wise are for XBLK. FYI.Wesley Fink - Friday, April 8, 2005 - link
#9 - The unique appearance of the back of the Brainpower PCB is much clearer in the p.2 photo in our Corsair PC4400 review at http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=231...OR you can direct link the Corsair Brainpower photo at http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/memory/ddr/cor...
Wesley Fink - Friday, April 8, 2005 - link
#11 - It should read "Memory Read performance increased about 29% with this 50% speed increase, while Memory Write performance improved by just 17%."The review has been corrected.
#13 - It depends on which Kingston you are talking about. We include two Kingston Value Ram products in next week's Value RAM Roundup.