Test Bed
- Intel Pentium 4 530J (Clocked to 233*15 for the Overclocked Portion)
- NVIDIA C19-CRB Motherboard
- 2x512MB Modules of PC2-5300 Crucial Ballistix
- Ultra 600W PSU
- Open Air Chassis
Perhaps the most interesting part to measuring the performance of DDR 2 is just how dependant it is on the FSB. No matter how fast the memory can go, or how low its latencies can get, it will be forever limited by the constrictions of the Front Side bus. Thus, we do four tests versus the conventional two. We test the ram at stock, then overclocked speeds on a non-overclocked CPU, then we ratchet up the FSB, and re-do the tests. Read on to find out the results - you may just be surprised.
Stock CPU
As you will notice, all of the scores are dangerously close together, with (surprisingly enough) the higher speed but lower latency Corsair XMS trailing behind by a small margin.
Overclocked CPU
Even as our processor's clocks are pushed upward, and our Front Side Bus opened wide, the limitations still remain, allowing the lower latency of the Crucial modules to dominate the much higher clocked albeit higher latency Corsair product.
