Power Memory International has been a RAM manufacturer 1990 however they just merged with PQI memory which was established in 1997. They will continue to sell RAM but from now on will be branded with PQI instead of PMI. This 512MB PC3200 Dual Channel (2x256MB) Platinum 2-3-2-6 kit was sent over for testing. PMI/PQI also has other memory ranging from PC2300 to PC4500 which is some of the fastest on the market. Below is a comparison chart of RAM speeds to get an idea of what we are looking at.
| PC2700 | DDR333 | 166MHz |
| PC3200 | DDR400 | 200MHz |
| PC3500 | DDR433 | 216MHz |
| PC3700 | DDR467 | 223MHz |
| PC4000 | DDR500 | 250MHz |
| PC4400 | DDR550 | 275MHz |
| PC4500 | DDR566 | 283MHz |
Power Memory International’s website has a decent amount of information. Below are some specifications that I pulled from their website. Everything looks right on the mark, it would be nice to see some lower cas latency however I’m sure the RAM could handle it if I changed it in the BIOS.
Specifications
- Part Number: PMI3200-512DPL
- Quality Control: Rigorously tested in pairs under dual channel environments
- Package: 512 kit (2x256MB) dual channel pack
- Organization: Two 32M x 64-bit
- CAS Latency: 2-3-2-6
- Test Voltage: 2.6 V
- PCB Board: 6 Layers PCB
- Heat Spreader: Platinum Copper
- Speed: DDR 400 MHz (PC3200)
- Type: 184-pin DDR SDRAM
- Error Checking: Non-ECC
- Registered/Unbuffered: Unbuffered
- Warranty: Lifetime
The memory comes retail packaged and isn’t very fancy. The label on the front gives you some information about the RAM the clear plastic gives you a glimpse inside. The modules themselves look pretty standard as far as RAM goes. They have platinum copper heat spreaders to dissipate heat and a label stuck to each. The heat spreaders are very shiny as you can see from the reflection of my cameras flash. I left the heat spreaders on the RAM since they are on there quite snug and didn’t want to damage the RAM.
Normally I leave overclocking until the last page however I had to put it first with this review. The reason is because I was unable to overclock this memory at all. Not only was I not able to overclock the memory at all but I wasn’t even able to get it to the stock speed. With this particular test bed it was either because of the motherboard, the RAM, or the combination of the two. I have a feeling that a big part of it has to do with the RAM though because even with other RAM I have been able to go much higher.
Benchmarking
For all of the benchmarks I tested at DDR356 which was the highest I was able to do as seen above. All of the memory settings were set to the manufacturers specifications because if I went any higher I would get errors. I used the following benchmarks: SiSoft Sandra 2004 professional, AIDA32, PCMark04, and Quake 3.
Test Bed:
- Albatron KM18G Pro
- AMD Athlon 1700+ Thoroughbred
- 30GB Seagate Barracuda IV HDD
- PMI 512MC PC3200
- Onboard video with 128MB shared
- Blue Meany
- Plextor PlexWriter 40/12/40A
- SilenX 400w PSU
- Thermalright SLK-800
SiSoft Sandra 2004 professional has many different informational modules and benchmarking tools however I only used the memory benchmark module. The results were not very impressive however with the speed the RAM is set at is about where it should be at. As compared to the other RAM you can see that it is somewhat low.
AIDA32 is system information and benchmarking tool that does quite a lot, unfortunately it is no longer in production but stil up to date. One part of the program will benchmark your memory’s read and write performance. The scores are outputted as the number of MB per second and as you can see the read score is about the same to as float buffered in SiSoft. The scores could be much higher and are with better RAM so I would have to say that this RAM is a little lacking.
Futuremark’s PCMark04 is a system benchmarking tool that does a broad range of testing. For this benchmark I only selected the system and memory options to focus on the RAM. Overall the score is 2491 which is alright and from the details page the memory score is 1811 which is similar to the past 2 benchmarks. It would be nice to see a higher score but the fact that the RAM was only able to get up to DDR356 is really a factor.
With Doom 3 right around the corner Quake 3 will probably be put to rest for most benchmarkers if they have not already done so. However since it isn’t out yet we will use it to test the memory in a gaming environment. Though this game does focus more on video card testing it can give some good information about overall system performance. A score of 170 FPS isn’t bad especially with onboard video and of course would be higher with a better video card.
Conclusion
This being my first experience with PMI memory I have to say that I am disappointed. After using Corsair memory consistently for years and other high grade products I expected more. Even if the motherboard I used isn’t the best motherboard on the market it is by no means bad.
Not everyone is going to have the best motherboard and will want for the RAM they buy to be compatible and to be able reach the specified speed. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to test this RAM on another system as I did not have anther dual channel 512MB kit and felt it would not be fair to compare against faster and larger RAM.
So if I had to sum up the review on this RAM I would say use discretion and do a little research. Your motherboard may be able to take more advantage of this RAM than the motherboard I used.
Overall I am going to give this RAM a 6/10 because it is good RAM for those who don’t overclock but does not reach its specified speed with the motherboard I used. I would like to thank Power memory International for sending this RAM for review.
Pros
- Dual channel
- Heatspreaders come stock
- Works for dual channel applications
Cons
- Was not able to reach DDR400