I recently reviewed a stick of PC3200 from XtremeDDR which PC-PitStop sent me. I was really impressed with the PC3200 from XtremeDDR and gave it the OCmodshop Seal of Approval. PC2700 is DDR333 which is what all of the new AMD motherboards are running with using the VIA KT333 chipset. The VIA KT400 is coming out soon which will officially support DDR400 but until then the VIA KT333 chipset is the fastest on the market for AMD.
Below is a chart of DDR speeds by the PC rating, DDR rating, and MHz that corresponds with each one. We are looking at the PC2700 which is DDR333 and 166MHz, above that is PC3000, PC3200 and recently PC3500 immerged which I will have some reviews of soon also.
| PC1600 | DDR200 | 100MHz |
| PC2100 | DDR266 | 133MHz |
| PC2400 | DDR300 | 150MHz |
| PC2700 | DDR333 | 166MHz |
| PC3000 | DDR366 | 183MHz |
| PC3200 | DDR400 | 200MHz |
| PC3500 | DDR433 | 216MHz |
The XtremeDDR 2700 module comes in a 256MB single sided version or a 512MB double sided version. This stick of RAM uses Samsung B3 -6ns chips that are really good; Samsung chips have proven to be very good at obtaining high FSB. The timings for this stick of RAM are the fastest by motherboard standards right now, 2-2-2 1T. This stick of RAM looks mighty impressive we shall see what it can really do later.
- Available in 512MB Double Sided Module
- Available in 256MB Single Sided Module
- Color Aluminum Heat Spreader
- Samsung B3 -6ns Chip
- Lifetime Warranty
- 2-2-2 1T Timings
- 333 (166) MHz
- Unbuffered
- CL 2.0
The stick of RAM comes in a basic package with some information about the RAM which is printed on a sticker and keeps the case closed. Nothing really fancy about the packaging on this RAM but it does the job and keeps cost of production down which means lower prices for you.
I opened up the package and took the stick of RAM out of the package. The RAM comes with a silver heatspreader which is good to help dissipate heat so you can overclock better. The heatspreaders come in 6 different colors: blue, gold, green, maroon, purple, and silver. I chose silver for no particular reason, the top of the heatspreader has a sticker on it with the speed and timings that is rated for and the back of it has the XtremeDDR logo etched into it.
This particular model of RAM is single sided meaning that only one side of the stick has chips on it. Single sided sticks are known to overclock a little higher than the double sided ones so this is a good thing. I was going to take the heatspreader off to see what was going on underneath it but I did not want to damage the RAM.
For benchmarking I will be using SiSoft Sandra’s memory benchmark, Quake 3, and Jedi Knight 2. All of the timings on the RAM will be set to 2-2-2 1T making it the fastest possible. All of the settings for Quake 3 and Jedi knight will be at 640×480 and have the lowest detail to more stress the CPU and memory rather than the video card. I will also be seeing how high this RAM will overclock as far as the FSB is concerned.
Test Bed
- EPoX 8K3A+
- 1.2Ghz Thunderbird
- 300w Zalman PSU (review to come)
- XtremeDDR PC2700
- 3D Power Geforce 3 @ Ti500 speeds
- Sound Blaster Live! Value 5.1
- 80GB Maxtor ATA133 HDD
- Pioneer 16x slot load DVD
- Plextor 40x12x40 CDRW (review to come)
- Thermalright SLK-800 w/ 80mm fan (review to come)
WCPUID is a program that tells you a lot about your CPU like the Internal clock, system bus, system clock, multiplier and a slew of other things like whether it supports MMX, MMX+, SSE, SSE2, 3DNow! or 3DNow+. It will also give you detailed information about the CPU itself like what kind of processor it is, platform, vendor string, CPU type, family, and name string. This is a really small program that is free but it does a great job at telling you what you need to know. At 133 FSB you can see that the internal clock is 1.2Ghz and the system bus is 266MHz which is the RAM bus.
I first tested this RAM at 133FSB just to see what kind of scores I would get and to get a feel for what this RAM could do. SiSoft Sandra put out some pretty good scores but they can do a lot better because this RAM is designed to run at 166FSb and higher!
I ran Quake 3 demo001 and Jedi Knight jk2ffa time demos just to get some gaming benchmarks, all of the settings were at the lowest and the resolution was at 640×480. I had all of the settings at the lowest because I wanted to stress the system as a whole rather than just the video card. Quake 3 spit out 172.2 frames per second while Jedi Knight 2 pumped out 81. Jedi knight gets about half the FPS that Quake 3 does because it is a newer game and even at the lowest settings still is more intensive overall.
I rebooted and set the FSB to 166 in the BIOS and dropped the multiplier to 8 which gave me an overall speed of 1.33GHz, this also bumped the RAM bus up to 333Mhz rather than 266MHz. The RAM is now running at the speed that it is intended to run at so lets see some benchmarks.
SiSoft shows us that this ram is indeed working better at 166 FSB than 133. There is a considerable increase in score with the overclock and I can feel that this RAM can do much more. there is usually a big increase in score from 133 to 166 because not only is the RAM running faster but the CPU is also running faster.
After bumping up the FSB to 166 Quake 3 gained 22 more frames per second than at 133FSB. Jedi Knight 2 gained 11 FPS more than at 133FSB. Its interesting to see that after overclocking there is still a 50% difference between Quake 3 and Jedi Knight 2 which we saw in the initial testing at 133FSB.
After testing at 166FSB I decided it was time to see what this RAM was really made of. I spent about 30 minutes playing with different FSB, multipliers, and voltages and I was finally able to reach the highest most stable speed. I got this XtremeDDR PC2700 to run at 175 FSB with a VDIMM of 2.9v and with a CPU Vcore of 1.85v. This PC2700 is only 8Mhz away from PC3000 speeds so with a better motherboard, or better cooling you might be able to get it there! I am pretty impressed with the overclocking ability of this RAM but lets see how the benchmarks go.
From 166 to 175 FSB there isn’t a huge improvement in the scores from SiSoft Sandra, however there is a gain that is for sure. It has been said that this EPoX motherboard puts out some low memory scores for whatever reason I am not sure nor can I say this is a fact because it is the best KT333 motherboard I have ever used.
With this overclock there was only a 10 FPS gain in Quake 3 and a 3 FPS gain in Jedi Knight 2. It seems that the only major increase in performance is that from 133 to 166 FSB, there is an improvement in scores at 175FSB however not as large as before. Also I only had the CPU overclocked a little more than stock because I was going for the highest FSb rather than the highest total overclock.
Conclusion
This being my second encounter with XtremeDDR I must say that my thoughts on the company has not changed. I still find them to be a great company that produces high quality, fast, and overclockable RAM. This PC2700 DDR was almost able to reach PC3000 speeds which is considerable.
The fact that the KT400 chipset is coming out makes PC2700 less desirable because it is now time to get PC3200 and faster to really utilize the new chipset. If you are a devout overclocker and want the fastest thing on the market I would suggest getting some PC3200 or PC3500 (I will have a review on the PC3500 soon) rather than this PC2700. However if you have just upgraded to a KT333 motherboard and are satisfied with it but want a little more performance out of it this PC2700 will help you do that.
The market for PC2700 is going the way of PC2100 but it still has a lot of life left in it so don’t be afraid that you will left behind in the never-ending pursuit for the fastest computer because unless you have a ton of money to spend you will always be obsolete.
Overall I am going to give this stick of RAM an 8/10 and award it the OCmodshop Seal of Approval, I would like to thank XtremeDDR for sending this over to review and if you are looking to buy some of this RAM you can find it at PC-PitStop for only $92
Pros
- Uses Samsung B3 chips
- Very high quality
- Overclocks really well
- Different color heatspreaders
Cons
- PC3200 & PC3500 are out