The test systems that will be used are outlined below and are almost identical. The only differences between the two is the memory and motherboards. The Corsair DDR2 will be tested on an Abit AA8-3rd Eye while the original DDR is tested on a Albatron PX915G Pro.
Test systems
Abit AA8-3rd Eye, Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz LGA775, 1GB (2x512MB) Corsair TWIN2X1024-5400C4PRO (4-4-4-12), Albatron PCX5750 (425/500), 30GB 7200RPM Western Digital hard drive, Windows XP SP1a.
Albatron PX915G Pro, Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz LGA775, 1GB (2x512MB) Corsair TWINX1024-3200LL DDR400 (2-2-2-5), Albatron PCX5750 (425/500), 30GB 7200RPM Western Digital hard drive, Windows XP SP1a.
Everest Home Edition Memory Benchmark
Everest is a free and good benchmarking tool for memory read/write bandwidth. As you can see there is a difference between regular DDR and DDR2 running at their stock speeds. The difference between the two isn’t extraordinary but it can be seen. With the DDR2 running at its rated speed of 339MHz you can see that there is a huge increase in bandwidth, 7026 MB/s is definitely nothing to scoff at.
SiSoft Sandra Memory Bandwidth Benchmark
This memory benchmark also shows similar resuts to Everest with there being little difference between regular DDR and DDR2. Again however the benefit of DDR2 at 339MHz can easily be seen and appreciated.
SYSmark 2004 Internet Content Creation
The overall score for SYSmark 2004 internet content creation the same at the standard speeds for both the DDR and DDR2. With the DDR2 running at its rated speed of 339MHz there is an clear increase in the overall score.
SYSmark 2004 Office Productivity
With the office productivity section of SYSmark 2004 the regular DDR and DDR2 are identical at their stock speeds. After taking the DDR2 to its rated 339MHz there is an obvious improvement.
RealStorm Benchmark 2004
RealStorm does not test the video card at all which makes which makes it ideal for this kind of testing. All of the options were left at the default except I changed the resolution to 640×480. The original DDR and DDR2 at their standard speeds are very close while the DDR2 at 339MHz pushes way past both of them.
dBpowerAMP
dBpowerAMP is a free music converter which I used to convert a wav to mp3. With the regular DDR and the DDR2 at 266MHz the file was converted in the same amount of time. With the memory at its rated speed of 339MHz it converted the file 6 seconds faster.
Lower is better
