Introduction

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Although it wasn’t expected before the end of the year, the first DDR2-667 modules have just been announced with an immediate availability. That makes it barely three weeks after the official launch of the new INTEL DDR2 platform that the next stage in the evolution of this new memory knocks on our door.

Unfortunately, DDR2-667 is currently not supported by any chipset and is therefore exclusively for overclocking. Indeed, the i915 and i925X currently support only the PC2-3200 (DDR2-400) and PC2-4300 (DDR2-533) standards. Only the future Lakeport chipset (expected in Q2' 05) and possibly the next VIA and SIS chipsets are expected to include support for PC2-5400 (DDR2-667) and possibly to as high as PC2-6400 (DDR2-800). However, the current overclocking capabilities of Intel’s LGA775 platform (with due respect to some) are sufficient to take advantage of this memory without having to incorporate advanced "modding" hardware.

At present, only two memory manufacturers offer DDR2-667. The first, a household name in top-of-the-line memory, is a regular in such opportunities: Corsair. With a significant lead over its primary competitors, Corsair recently announced XMS2 PC2-5400, available immediately. The second manufacturer is a surprise, even though their memory modules are also very famous for their quality: Crucial. The "general public" division of the giant Micron, Crucial modules have nothing to prove in the area of quality. Moreover, the online sales and service through their site are, in more ways than one, exemplary. In short, it is with enthusiasm that we welcome Crucial into the very closed circle of makers of high-end, high quality modules. For the occasion, Crucial has created the "Ballistix" line, which presently includes four types of modules, including DDR2-667.

In this article, we will make specific observations on the performance of DDR2 in general, and on the XMS2-5400 Corsair and Ballistix PC2-5300 from Crucial. In order to make this test more complete, we also chose to include DDR2-533 modules from Kingston as well as the PC2-4300 “Enhanced Bandwidth” modules from OCZ.

Before beginning the rough tests, we will first study in detail the performance of synchronous and asynchronous modes of the i925X chipset. How does FSB800/DDR2-400 compare to FSB800/DDR2-533? …or FSB1066/DDR2-533 to FSB1066/DDR2-667? We will answer that soon. Then we will compare the performance of DDR2 against DDR1. With this plan, we will compare DDR1-400 to DDR2-533, and DDR1-500 to DDR2-667, and we will then see which of the two memories offers the best results, and whether the choice of DDR2 is now justified with the arrival of DDR2-667.

Once we’ve established that, we will focus on how latency timings and frequency affect performance in this new memory. Indeed, although DDR2 offers more bandwidth, it also requires higher timings. As with DDR1, Corsair, OCZ and other memory manufacturers will soon offer "Low Latency" and other "high frequency" DDR2 modules. Our challenge here is to find the best formula to maximize performance. Then, we will try to overclock each module to its limits. Let us proceed.

• Test Setup

The test system configurations are as follows:

All the motherboards are equipped with the most recent BIOS to date. The tests are performed under Windows XP SP1 with the latest drivers available on the sites of the respective manufacturers.

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