Memory Performance Testing:

Our first benchmarking section will deal with standard memory bandwidth and subsystem performance, and uses SiSoft SANDRA 2005 and PCMark 2004 Pro.

SiSoft SANDRA 2005 Performance

SiSoft SANDRA 2005 is the latest revision of this popular system benchmark, but sticks to its roots and supplies a wide range of individual benchmarks and system utilities. The memory bandwidth tests are the most popular section of the SiSoft SANDRA benchmark suite, and highlight the potential performance levels of the overall memory subsystem.

The SANDRA benchmark chart shows the clear advantage of a higher memory bus speed, and exactly how it relates to overall memory bandwidth. The OCZ PC3700 at 480 MHz is the clear winner, and even at 436 MHz, both the OCZ PC3200 and PC3700 showed marked improvements over standard 400 MHz operation. When we get down to the 400 MHz comparisons, there is a small improvement with the OCZ PC3200 using 2-2-2-5 timings, but it is not significant compared to the OCZ PC3700 memory.

The SiSoft SANDRA 2005 Floating Point benchmark shows the same basic trends as we saw in the Integer testing, and we again see the overclocked OCZ PC3700 and PC3200 memory taking the top spots. And it is also the same story when comparing results at 400 MHz, with the low-latency OCZ PC3200 moving into the top spot, just slightly ahead of Corsair PC3200LL and OCZ PC4200 EL

PCMark 2004 Pro Performance

PCMark 2004 Pro cuts a line between purely synthetic and application-based system benchmarking, and provides an overall view of computer performance. PCMark 2004 performs general use tasks such as image compression, grammar check, and audio conversion, while combining this with a selection of similar benchmarks for individual system components. In this case, we're using both the System and Memory results.

The PCMark 2004 Pro Memory scores are quite similar to those we found using SiSoft SANDRA, but as is usual with this benchmark, there is not the same separation. Certainly, the overclocked OCZ PC3700 at 480 MHz is still the top performer, but this time the 436 MHz OCZ PC3700 and PC3200 are not far back. The 400 MHz results mirror those of SANDRA very closely and again it is a very close race between the top-rated modules, with the OCZ PC3200 finishing in tight with the Corsair PC3200LL.

The PCMark 2004 System benchmark scores are a bit more platform-oriented, with all components of the PC driving overall performance. The benchmark results are still grouped very close together, but we still see a performance advantage to the overclocked memory, just not as much as if the processor was also running at a higher-than 2.4 GHz clock speed.