System setup and notes
HEXUS test PC and memory specs
| Memory | Corsair DOMINATOR XMS2-10000 | Kingston HyperX KHX9600D2K2/2G | OCZ Reaper HPC Edition PC2-9200 | CellShock DDR2 1000 | G.SKILL F2-6400CL4D | Corsair XMS2 PC-9136 | Corsair XMS2 PC-6400 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Memory Timings and Speed | 1250MHz, 5-5-5-18 2T | 1200MHz, 5-5-5-15 2T | 1150MHz, 5-5-5-18 2T | 1000MHz, 4-4-4-12 2T | 800MHz, 4-4-3-5 2T | 1142MHz, 5-5-5-15 2T | 800MHz, 4-4-4-12 2T |
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (3.00GHz, 4MiB L2 cache, 1333MHz FSB, LGA775) - see notes below | ||||||
| Motherboard | eVGA NF68 (NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI) | ||||||
| BIOS revision | 691N0P20 | ||||||
| Graphics Card | 2 x Asus GeForce 7900GTX 512MB (SLI ENABLED) | ||||||
| Disk drive(s) | Seagate 160GB SATAII (ST3160812AS) | ||||||
| Mainboard software | NVIDIA platform driver 9.53 | ||||||
| Graphics driver | ForceWare 91.47 | ||||||
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional 32-bit with SP2 | ||||||
| Approx price at time of writing | £469 | £137 | £138 | £136 | £86 | ||
Tests
| 2D Benchmarks | ScienceMark Memory Bandwidth ScienceMark Memory Latency CPU-Z Latency SiSoft Sandra Memory Bandwidth HEXUS DivX encoding |
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| 3D Benchmarks | Far Cry v1.33 Quake 4 v1.30 |
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Setup notes
The eVGA NF68 motherboard was chosen because its NVIDIA nForce 680i chipset allows independent setting of the speed of the memory and the front side bus.
Other chipsets, such as Intel's P965 and P35, don't have that ability, so the memory speeds available are dictated by speed set for the front side bus and the memory-multipliers offered by the chipset.
With all memory modules except the OCZ PC9200, the CPU was run at 3000MHz with a 1333MHz FSB (rather than the stock 2933MHz frequency with a 1066MHz FSB).
For the OCZ, we had to run the CPU at 3019MHz with a 1342MHz FSB - because of the OCZ's peculiar speed-grade and because of chipset limitations.
Temperatures
| Corsair
DOMINATOR XMS2-10000 (with DOMINATOR Airflow fan) |
Corsair DOMINATOR
XMS2-10000 (without DOMINATOR Airflow fan) |
Kingston HyperX KHX9600D2K2/2G | OCZ Reaper HPC Edition PC2-9200 | CellShock DDR2 1000 | G.SKILL F2-6400CL4D | |
| Ambient temperature | 23C | 22.5C | 19.5C | 24C | 23C | 21.5C |
| Temperature after 30 minute stability test | 32.5C | 37.5C | 39.5C | 36.5C | 38C | 37C |
| Temperature delta | 9.5C | 15C | 20C | 12.5C | 15C | 15.5C |
With its DOMINATOR Airflow fan, the Corsair was clearly the coolest-running off all the modules. The OCZ Reaper also had impressive thermals, with the lowest temperature delta of the passively-cooled modules.
Though only marginally faster than the OCZ, the Kingston sees the greatest delta, 20C.
How much of an affect any of this will have on overclocking performance will start to become evident soon...
