We tested the EMS HSDRAM for a week in the Sharky Extreme Hardware Lab, and found the results to be extremely impressive. We utilized front side bus speeds of 100, 112, 124, 129, 133, 138, 143, and 148MHz to push the HSDRAM, the results are tabled here:
3-3-3 3-2-2 2-2-2
100MHz Pass Pass Pass
112MHz Pass Pass Pass
124MHz Pass Pass Pass
129MHz Pass Pass Pass
133MHz Pass Pass Pass
138MHz Pass Pass Fail
143MHz Pass Fail Fail
148MHz Fail Fail Fail
We used a standard P2-333 CPU to test the HSDRAM, as it offered the luxury of an unlocked clock multiplier platform for accurate testing.
As can be seen from the latency scores above, the HSDRAM is the first PC-133 SDRAM we've tested that was able to utilize the BX6 R2's higher speed FSB settings while maintaining system stability.
Of particular note was the HSDRAM's virtual ownership of the 133MHz bus speed, it powered out several benchmarks while maintaining a latency rating of 2-2-2, a specification that actually exceeds the part's rated abilities of 3-2-2 for the speed.
148MHz however was beyond the reach of our HSDRAM DIMMs, as they yielded poor stability results at that level throughout testing.
EMS has been able to run the same chips at up to a FSB speed of 150MHz at 3-2-2 in their labs, which is an incredible achievement of latency reduction.
HSDRAM is fast, and delivers very well on the promises its spec sheet lists.
