Crucial 512MB PC3200 DDR400 Memory

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Brian Kristensen
Kurtis
Crucial
Apr. 9, 2004

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Overclocking

Here comes the fun part. Hoping to get a good overclock out of this memory, it was installed in an ABIT IC7-MAX3 along with a Pentium 4 2.4C which is able to reach a perfectly stable 3 GHz. Sticking with the stock timings of 3-3-3-8, I began to slowly increase the speed by 2 MHz increments. I was able to get the module to a stable 220 MHz, a 20 MHz increase from the stock 200 MHz. The voltage was increased to 2.7v to ensure stability. Any increase in voltage past 2.7v failed to increase the modules overclocking potential. For comparison's sake, the Corsair PC3500 we recently reviewed had stock speeds of 217 MHz and was able to overclock to 224 MHz.

Test System

As I mentioned during the overclocking segment, the memory was tested in an ABIT IC7-MAX3 and a Pentium 4 2.4C. The CPU/RAM was at a 1:1 ratio throughout testing. The Crucial memory was tested along with Transcend PC4000 and Corsair PC3500 modules clocked at PC3200 speeds. All memory was tested in single channel mode.

Test Rig:

Pentium 4 2.4c
ABIT IC7-MAX3
PowerColor Radeon 9800 XT (Catalyst 4.2)
200 GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9
LiteOn 16X DVD-ROM
Soyo Barracuda 400W Power Supply
Windows XP Professional (latest updates)

The following memory was used during testing:

512 MB Crucial PC3200 @ 400MHz (3-3-3-8) / CPU @ 2.4 GHz
512 MB Corsair PC3500 @ 400MHz (2-3-3-7) / CPU @ 2.4 GHz
2x 256 MB Transcend PC4000 @ 400MHz (3-4-4-8) / CPU @ 2.4 GHz

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Page 3 of 6

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: A Closer Look
Page 3: Overclocking / Test System
Page 4: SiSoft Sandra 04 / Aida32
Page 5: PCMark04 / ScienceMark2
Page 6: Super Pi / Conclusion

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6 User Comments

1 - Posted by A Person on April 10, 2004 - 1:50 am

I usually think of Crucial as the memory that you buy for your average PC. I was surprised to see it perform that well, even with reduced timings.

So does crucial have different quality memory? All I could determine from their website is that they make different speeds of "memory upgrades" :D from EDO and PC100 up to DDR2-533. I guess what I'm asking is, Corsair has the "Value Select" series and the XMS series. Does crucial have anything like that?

2 - Posted by Brian on April 10, 2004 - 11:21 am

All of Crucial's memory is pretty much the same. As far as I can tell, they don't have a higher/lower quality or speed lines of modules.

They have some information on their website which might be of interest to you. This is page four of their "Quality Counts" section:

http://www.crucial.com/library/quality_page4.asp

3 - Posted by Guest on April 10, 2004 - 12:19 pm

good review, but you didn't bench any games. will timings affect games more than synthetic benchmarks?

4 - Posted by Tulatin on April 10, 2004 - 6:58 pm

It also performs about the same as the ECC models.

5 - Posted by A Person on April 11, 2004 - 5:53 pm

wow, i never knew what "generic memory" actually meant. i guess i will never buy any of that stuff.

6 - Posted by OldCoot on May 9, 2004 - 1:29 am

I have an Asus P4P800, Intel 2.4C with a stick of the same 512 Mb Crucial PC 3200 memory.
The motherboard set to 'auto' detects the memory timing as 2.5-4-4-8.
Which timing is theoretically faster: the reviewed 3-3-3-8 or my detected 2.5-4-4-8?
I know that CAS 2.5 is faster than 3, but I don't know what effect the other numbers have on it.

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