Super PI

Super Pi calculates the infamous number PI from 16 thousand all the way up to 32 million digits! For our testing purposes, we decided on two million digits which takes 20 iterations. Super Pi then spits out the time (in seconds) that it took to do the calculations. Obviously, the lower the number, the better.

Super PI

Time (lower is better)

2x Transcend @ 400 MHz

2x Transcend @ 500 MHz

Corsair TWINX @ 400 MHz

Corsair TWINX @ 500 MHz

135.6

108.3

135.6

108.3

0

(Seconds)

200

 

 

When the memory is at its full 500 MHz, Super PI's calculation time drops by 25%. Overall, we got a 20-25% increase in performance when using PC4000 rather than PC3200 which matches up quite nicely with the 25% increase in MHz from 400 to 500 MHz. However, this performance increase was also caused due to the overclocked CPU.

Conclusion

From my experience, Transcend's PC4000 is on-par with the high performance memory being produced by many other manufacturers including Corsair. Transcend's PC4000 was able to hold its own against Corsair's PC4000, especially while overclocking. While a 2-2.5 % increase in memory speed isn't much of an overclock in this situation, the ability for Transcend to keep up with Corsair shows that Transcend is doing a damn fine job.

PC4000 is definitely worth looking in to, especially if you are trying to overclock a locked-multiplier CPU such as the Pentium 4. However, most Athlon systems won't be able to benefit from the high speeds provided by PC4000 memory. The performance increase we saw during our testing was not only due to the increase in memory speeds, but an increase in cpu speed as well. While the memory's performance alone was not the sole factor in the overall performance of the system, faster memory allows for one less bottleneck and the ability to further overclock the cpu and gain even better performance.

Even though Transcend's memory is able to keep up with the best, they are not a very well known company and it can be hard to find places that sell their memory. Through Dealtime, we are only able to find one store that carries Transcend's PC4000 while there are many that stock Corsair and other leading brands. Your final decision on what memory to buy should be made on price and availability.

Pros

Great performance
On-par with leading brands
Allows for some good P4 OCing

Cons

Not as easy to find as other leading brands
Overclocking leaves a bit to be desired