The last few months haven’t seen many large changes in the memory market other than confirming the change in standards from DDR to DDR2, a large part of which can be accredited to the AM2 launch which had both Intel and AMD supporting a unified memory solution again. The popularity of Core 2 chips among enthusiasts has also greatly spurred the popularity of DDR2 because it is the only memory standard compatible with the, as of right now, performance-crown-holding processors.

Using DDR2 as the new unified memory solution means that memory manufacturers can begin focusing on one technology instead of two. In other words, DDR2 memory has become the point of emphasis for pretty much all memory manufacturers. As a result of this, memory manufacturers are following a market trend that we have seen in the past and will most likely see again in the future with DDR3. It is a market trend that pretty much always develops with the introduction of a new memory standard: manufacturers begin aggressively looking for ways to increase the clock frequency of their products while simultaneously implementing tighter timings.

In this article we have intentionally limited ourselves to analyzing the overclocking performance of only two categories of DDR2 memory. The modules we are testing are all classified as DDR2-667 (PC2-5400) and DDR2-800 (PC2-6400). For the article, we chose only memory which fit into a price range available to a large majority customers. Although DDR2-1100 kits might look appealing, the truth of the matter is that they are generally in a price range that makes them suitable to a small portion of consumers. In other words, only a few people can actually afford them.

For this analysis, we chose to analyze memory kits that have a total of 2 Gigabytes. The reason behind this decision is that Dual Core CPUs are able to perform better in multitasking paired with 2GB of memory instead of 1.

Below is a list of the modules we will be testing in this article:

PC2-5400 Category

• Mushkin XP2-5300 "996521"
• Geil PC2-5400 "GX22GB5300SDC"
• OCZ EL PC2-5400 Special Ops Edition "OCZ2SOE6672GK"
• Teamgroup DDR2-667 "TXDD2048M667HC3DC-M"

PC2-6400 Category

• Mushkin XP2-6400 "996523"
• Mushkin EM2-6400 "996527"
• GSkill "F2-6400CL4D-2GBPK"
• OCZ PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2 "OCZ2P800R22GK"
• GEIL PC2-6400 "GX22GB6400UDC"
• Cellshock PC2-6400
• Teamgroup DDR2-800/1000 "TXDD2048M1800HC5DC"

Test Configuration and Procedure

The motherboard we chose was from the upper mid-range segment of the market: the ASUS P5B Deluxe which is based on the Intel P965 chipset. In order to test stability of the modules after they were overclocked, we ran a pure calculation test, SuperPi 32M, and a graphical application, 3dmark 2001.

To simplify the number of overclocking results we had, we limited ourselves to timings of only 4.4.4.12. All others timing formations were not included in our results.

In order to allow the modules to reach their maximum frequency, we gave them as much voltage as they demanded. However, we were limited by the maximum voltage level our motherboard could supply, 2.45V. The differences in voltage among the modules came from the diverse characteristics of the various chips used for each kit. In order to have the modules perform to the best of their ability, we properly cooled all modules during the tests with an 80mm fan.

In the article, we will begin by introducing the products we are testing from each manufacturer. After all products have been introduced, we will analyze the results of our tests and compare overclocked frequencies against the default values.
It is important to remember that manufactures only guarantee the default frequencies and timings that are indicated for the modules, so naturally there will be some modules that will not be suitable for overclocking. In order to simulate a consumer experience, none of these models were handpicked. However, it is still important to remember that you might not be able to achieve the same results as us because memory modules vary in their overclocking potential.