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"GSkill 2-3-3-6 PC3200 Memory (F1-3200PHU2-1GBLA) Review
Review By: Scott Rempel
Date: May 19, 2005
Review Sample Provided By: GSkill
Over the past several months the name GSkill has become synonymous with some of the best performing memory on the market. GSkill’s TCCD based memory is highly sought after for the outrageous speeds and tight timings it is able to achieve. Well what happens if you can not afford this premium memory but are still looking for some decent performance? Enter the new GSkill 2-3-3-6 memory! This may look like your average “value” RAM, but GSkill makes some pretty big claims, saying “It is capable of achieving outrageous speeds of up to 433MHZ [at 2-3-3-6] OR DDR480 above at CL 2.5-4-4-8…”. DDR480 from a low priced set of PC3200 memory is nothing to turn your nose up at.
GSkill 2-3-3-6 Dual Channel Memory
Before I get into the review, I just want to mention that this memory has a new product model number of F1-3200PHU2-1GBZX, which is what you will find on GSkill’s website.
The 2x512MB of GSkill memory is packaged in a very plain and simple packaging. The plastic is clear, allowing you to see the memory modules. No heat spreaders to be found here…it seems GSkill has kept everything as simple as possible to help keep costs down. While heat spreaders do look nice, they do not really help cool the RAM, so you should not feel like you are losing out from a performance standpoint. Some of GSkill’s higher-end TCCD based memory is actually void of heat spreaders as well.
Here are a couple of pictures of the memory removed from the packaging. There is not very much to see here, other then a couple of information stickers. It actually looks similar to the “value” and “generic” memory that you see all over the place.
Zooming in a bit, we see that the memory chips are labeled with the GSkill logo and the number “C32M8D-5”. I am unaware what type of chips GSkill is using, but there is a good chance it is Samsung TCC5. A more interesting number I found was the “B6U808” located on the PCB. This number represents a version of BrainPower PCB, which as many of you may know, is a popular PCB used in the making of high performance memory.
Testing and Overclocking
In this section of the review we will look at the performance of the GSkill memory compared to some TCCD based OCZ memory and also see how far we can push the sticks with some overclocking.
Test system
- A64 3200+ Winchester
- MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
- BFG 6800 Ultra OC
- OCZ PowerStream 520W
- 2x512MB OCZ PC3700 Platinum (used for comparison)
Testing Methodology
Both sets of memory were run in dual channel mode at DDR400 with timings of 2-3-3-8 (CAS=2, tRCD=3, tRP=3, tRAS=8 ). Several benchmarks were used to compare the performance of the two sets of memory with all settings being equal. Most are standard synthetic benchmark programs, but I wanted to get at least one game test in. I found a nice little program called HardwareOC HL2 Bench that can be downloaded HERE.
For every test used, with the exception of Super PI, a higher score is better. All tests were run a total of four times. The first result was discarded and then an average value was calculated from the remaining three values.
The Results
Well, as you can see from the results above, the GSkill 2-3-3-6 memory performs nearly identical to the much more expensive OCZ memory. Do keep in mind that the OCZ is capable of running 2-2-2-5 timings at DDR400 though. I chose to make the timings the same so we could determine if there is any performance loss due to the cheaper memory chips used on the GSkill. The answer is obviously “no”.
Overclocking
Overclocking is something I am personally very interested in as I like to be able to squeeze every last ounce of performance out of my parts. GSkill makes some pretty big claims of this “value” RAM so it is now time to put it to the test!
The memory was tested with various timings and voltages. The highest overclock at each set of timings was recorded. All values stated are stable overclocks, verified with memtest86. Please note that the timings shown below are given in the order of the MSI motherboard’s BIOS (2-3-6-3 below = 2-3-3-6).
I know what you are thinking…”Scott, where are all the results at various voltages, etc?” Well, it turns out that this memory did not respond at all to increases in memory voltage. I took the voltage up to 2.9V and there was negligible speed gain. At the default voltage of 2.65V the RAM reached its maximum overclock. The memory was not stable at DDR400 with any timings lower then the default 2-3-3-6. I was also somewhat disappointed to see only a 5 MHz OC at the default timings. By relaxing the timings to 2.5-4-6-3 (2.5-4-6-4 did not help) I found the maximum overclock to be 236 MHz, which translates to DDR472. I tried relaxing the CAS to 3 but this memory will not boot at that timing. This is a very decent overclock for what looks like “value” memory, but unfortunately it is not quite the DDR480 that GSkill seems to claim possible on their site. Thinking that my particular motherboard possibly did not like the GSkill memory, I decided to test it in my new DFI Ultra-D motherboard – the results were the same. Looking around the ‘net, I found there were other users getting about the same OC, so it appears not all of this 2-3-3-6 memory is capable of DDR480.
Conclusion
GSkill was smart to release a lower-end product into their line-up, as not everyone can afford the top of the line memory, nor do they need it. With the GSkill 2-3-3-6 memory you get a great “bang for your buck” with retail prices hovering around $100 USD. The memory performs well, has better timings then most similarly priced memory, and is no slouch in the OC department. The only major disappointment I had with the GSkill memory is that I was not able to achieve the type of overclock that the GSkill website claimed. Overclocking will vary from stick to stick, but if you are going to claim a certain overclock, I think that all of your products should be capable of those numbers. Possibly I just got a bad batch…hard to say.
For good performance, at a budget price, I am very pleased to give the GSkill 2-3-3-6 memory the “ap0c Approved” award!"