OCZ 3700 Gold Rev. 3: DDR500 Value for Athlon 64 & Intel 478

Intel Performance Test Configuration

We tested the OCZ 3700 Gold Rev. 3 in our standard Intel Pentium 4 Memory test bed. The hardware for evaluating the Ultra X memory is the same used in our earlier reviews of DDR400 and faster Memory.

All test conditions were as close as possible to those used in our earlier memory reviews. We have also eliminated from our charts any memory that has been discontinued, including Winbond BH5 and BH6 versions from several vendors and earlier versions of several current memory products.

INTEL 875P Performance Test Configuration
Processor(s):	Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz (800MHz FSB)
RAM:	2 x 512MB OCZ PC3700 Gold Rev. 3 (DS) 2 x 512MB Geil PC3200 Ultra X (DS) 2 x 512MB Crucial Ballistix PC3200 (DS) 2 x 512MB Kingston HyperX PC3200 L-L (DS) 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3200 Level II V2 (DS) 2 x 512MB OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 (DS) 2 x 512MB Corsair 3200XL PRO (DS) 2 x 256MB Samsung PC4000 (SS) 2 x 512MB Buffalo FireStix PC4000 (DS) 2 x 512MB Shika XRAM PC4400 (DS) 2 x 512MB OCZ PC4400 EL Gold (DS) 2 x 512MB OCZ 3700EB (DS) 2 x 512MB OCZ 3500EB (DS) 2 x 512MB Mushkin 2-2-2 Special (DS) 2 x 512MB PMI4200 Gold (DDR533 DS) 4 x 256MB Samsung PC3700 (DDR466 SS) 2 x 512MB Kingmax DDR500 Hardcore Series (DS) 2 x 512MB Kingmax DDR466 Hardcore Series (DS) 2 x 512MB Corsair XMS4400v1.1 TwinX (DS) 2 x 512MB OCZ PC4400 DC Kit (DS) 2 x 512MB OCZ PC3700 Gold Rev. 2 (DS) 2 x 512MB OCZ 4200EL(DS) 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC4000 High Performance (DS) 2 x 512MB Corsair TwinX4000 PRO (DS) 2 x 256MB Adata DDR450 (SS) 2 x 512MB Adata PC4000 (DS) 2 x 512MB Corsair PC4000 (DS) 2 x 512MB Geil PC4000 (DS) 2 x 512MB OCZ PC4000 (DS)
Hard Drives	2 Western Digital Raptor Serial ATA 36.7GB 10,000RPM drives in an Intel ICH5R RAID configuration
PCI/AGP Speed	Fixed at 33/66
Bus Master Drivers:	875P Intel INF Update v5.00.1012, SATA RAID drivers installed, but IAA not installed
Video Card(s):	ATI 9800 PRO 128MB, 128MB aperture, 1024x768x32
Video Drivers:	ATI Catalyst 4.9
Power Supply:	Vantec Stealth 470 Watt Aluminum
Operating System(s):	Windows XP Professional SP1
Motherboards:	Asus P4C800-E (875) with 1016 Release BIOS

We have found the fastest performance on Intel 865/875 to be achieved at Cycle Time or tRAS of 5, or the fastest tRAS setting that is stable with the tested memory. Intel platform benchmarks were therefore run with the fastest stable tRAS timings that we could achieve with the Geil Ultra X.

Test Settings

We ran our standard suite of memory performance benchmarks. The following settings were tested with the OCZ 3700 Gold Rev. 3 memories:

1. 800FSB/DDR400 - the highest stock speed supported on 875/865 and K8T800/nF3/SiS755 motherboards.
2. 866FSB/DDR433 - a speed rating that we have used in testing other low-latency DDR400 memory.
3. 933FSB/DDR466 - the rated speed of OCZ 3700 Gold Rev. 3.
4. 1000FSB/DDR500 - a standard memory speed used in testing other high-speed memory and the rated speed of OCZ PC4000 Gold Rev. 2.
5. 1066FSB/DDR533 - a standard memory speed included for comparison.
6. Highest Stable Overclock - the highest settings we could achieve with this memory and other memory that we have tested.

These are the same general settings used in benchmarking other DDR memory in the past year. DDR400, DDR500 and Highest Memory Speed have been used for all benchmarking. DDR433 and 466 were also used for testing other DDR400 2-2-2 modules, so we also ran benchmarks at these timings for comparisons. We also included test results at DDR533 for those memories that reached that speed and beyond.