System setup and notes
Here's a quick rundown of the test system should you wish to compare benchmark results with your own.- Mushkin 1GByte (2x512MB) Level-II PC3200 RAM (2-2-2-5 @ DDR400, and 2.5-3-3-7 @ DDR500)
- OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev 2 1GByte (2-2-2-5 @ DDR400)
- Crucial Ballistix PC4000 1GByte (2x512MB) (2-2-2-5 @ DDR400)
Other components
Software
- Windows XP Professional
Notes
Three sets of extreme performance memory up against each other. The basic setup consisted of a Pentium 4 3.0GHz Northwood CPU run at 15x200MHz FSB. To make things interesting, I also ran the Mushkin pair at 250MHz FSB (DDR500) with timings of 2.5-3-3-7 timings. To keep things in parity, I dropped the CPU's multiplier down to 12x, such that we're looking at:
3006MHz - 15x multiplier - 200MHz FSB - DDR400 - 2-2-2-5 timings.
3006MHz - 12x multiplier - 250MHz FSB - DDR500 - 2.5-3-3-7 timings.
What I'm attempting to answer is, given a similar overall clock speed, whether having a higher FSB and higher latencies (1:1 CPU-to-RAM ratio) is better than a comparatively lower FSB and tight timings. On to the tests.
