OCZ DDR3 PC3-12800 4GB AMD Black Edition Dual Channel Kit Review

We take a look at some 1600MHz DDR3 memory designed esepcially with AMD systems in mind.

Product on Review: OCZ DDR3 PC3-12800 Black Edition Dual Channel Kit
Manufacturer and Sponsor: OCZ Technology
Street Price: £100 / $156 / €122

Here in the UK OCZ memory is amongst the most popular brand besides the likes of Corsair. Stores like Scan, Overclockers UK, ebuyer, ARIA, CCL and others always stock this brand of memory. It’s a firm favourite with hardware enthusiasts and has national (and international) recognition for being affordable and solid in performance.

The kit we are taking a look at today is designed for the AMD platform, and more rightly – the AMD Black Edition of CPU’s. The idea is that this memory kit will compliment such a setup. We will be allowing it to unleash it’s true potential on the 890FX chipset accompanied by an AMD X6 1055T. The perfect combination.

The OCZ Black Edition series are deemed as special edition and come in two flavours CL7 or CL8. The kit we will be looking at is a CL8 4GB Dual Channel kit rated at PC3-12800 that is – 1600MHz. It’s timings come as 8-8-8-24 at 1.65v.

OCZ Technology’s Take

OCZ’s AMD Black Edition is tested and qualified specifically for AMD’s latest “Black Edition” CPUs for ultimate performance and stability. Featuring the unique AMD “OverDrive™” (AOD) capability, users can unleash the remote stored profiles directly from AMD when used with supporting 790FX / 790GX motherboards, giving users a performance edge with instant “plug and play” functionality. This highly advanced feature detects your OCZ Black Edition RAM when used in conjunction with AOD-supporting motherboards and AMD Black Edition Phenom CPUs, then the data is sent to a remote server to download the correct profiles to get your system up and running at its peak.

Sadly the board we will be using in the bench tests does not feature AOD. In fact there are only two motherboards that do according to OCZ.

Specifications
• 1600MHz DDR3
• CL 8-8-8-24(CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS)
• 1.65 Volts
• Available in 4GB D/C kits
• Black Edition Ready XTC Heatspreader
• Lifetime Warranty
• Unbuffered
• 240 Pin DIMM

OCZ 'Black Edition' Modules

Such a simplistic component should have less packaging, and the Black Edition modules are given over to this idea. They are encased in a clear plastic covering. Whilst this is minimalistic it would be nice to see companies trying, wherever possible to make this packaging recyclable. After all, this is one of the big concerns these days.

Being clear, the modules can be seen through the casing. On the reverse we have some information giving the usual technical specifications.

If you have seen or had the pleasure of using OCZ platinum, gold or silver series you will be familiar with the XTC heat spreader that OCZ dress the modules in. Following on from the great success this cooling solution offers, OCZ have decided to use the XTC heat spreader on the Black Edition memory modules also – but this time they are obviously black!

With the XTC heatsinks being low profile and standard height, you will suffer little if none compatibility problems when installing on the motherboard. Some kits come with extravagant heatsinks causing the modules to clash with the bottom of CPU heatsinks but clearance issues are certainly something the Black Edition kit avoids.

The dual channel kit in this review is rated at 8-8-8-24 at 1.65v and being PC3-12800 this memory operates at 1600MHz by default.

Performance and Overclocking

All previous memory reviews have focused on the Intel platform but today we have a kit designed specifically for the AMD platform. In order for us to gage how well the Black Edition kit performs, I will be comparing it at stock speeds against Mushkin EM3-10666 (9-9-9-24) 1333MHz DDR3 and then overclocking it as far as it will allow me. CPU clock speed will be kept at the default of 2.8GHz so that all other parameters are taken out of the equation and the overclock can run freely without anything affecting it.

Test System

CPU AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8GHz
Motherboard ASUS M4A89TD PRO (890FX)
Graphics MSI 8800GTX 798MB
Memory Mushkin EM3-10666 and OCZ Black Edition PC3-12800
HDD Samsung Spinpoint 500GB SATA-II
PSU Enermax Revolution85+
Case NZXT Tempest Evo

Overclocking

Since our kit incorporates the notorious XTC heatspreaders its worth our while discovering how far we can push the Black Edition memory by way of overclocking. To do this, I entered the BIOS and used the Ai Tweaker on the M4A89TD PRO. It’s quite simple, I kept the clock speed of the AMD 1055T at stock (2.8GHz) and only altered the DRAM frequency to increase the speed of the memory. DRAM Timings did need to be tweaked but voltages remained at 1.65v.

I was able to increase the frequencies on the Black Edition memory rather significantly. First off, I increased by 200MHz to 1800MHz nudging the timings up a little to help the overclock. The memory responded very well to this, and after the various bencharks that follow were performed I again increased the frequency to 2000MHz which is a very encouraging 400MHz over the stock frequency. Timings did have to be nudged up a little due to lockups and instability but resting at 9-9-9-28, the Black Edition again responded very well to the tweaking. I’m sure with extended time and altering voltages, timings and other parameters this memory can go even further. Here are the overclocks that were achieved. They will be featured in the following benchmarks in the preceding pages.

EVEREST Ultimate

EVEREST Ultimate Edition is an industry leading system diagnostics and benchmarking solution for enthusiasts PC users, based on the award-winning EVEREST Technology. During system optimizations and tweaking it provides essential system and overclock information, advanced hardware monitoring and diagnostics capabilities to check the effects of the applied settings. CPU, FPU and memory benchmarks are available to measure the actual system performance and compare it to previous states or other systems.

It’s evident from the above statistics that the read and write performance generally responds well to higher frequency, as the 2000MHz overclock provides larger bandwidth. Latency ratings are improved upon when the timings are tighter, so the 1800MHz overclock has the same timings as the stock 1600MHz, thus the latency in this area is better but the cache is a different matter altogether. L1 and L2 modes are hard to interpret whilst the L3 shows that the higher the frequency the more bandwidth is available.

3DMark Vantage x64

3DMark Vantage is benchmark suite designed computer systems offering one-click simplicity for casual users and detailed, professional grade testing for industry, press and enthusiasts.

A 3DMark score is a measure of your computer’s performance across a variety of 3D operations.

Strangely enough, the maximum overclock benefits the Black Edition kit rather insignificantly. The score nudges up only 2 weak points in its benchmark test – showing that timings AND frequency increase is what is needed to push those scores up. The difference between 1600MHz and 1800MHz is a clear indicator of this.

SiSoftware SANDRA

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.
Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

In regards to bandwidth the Black Edition reacts slightly better to higher frequencies over tighter timings. A combination of tighter timings and good frequency allows for slightly better performance and lastly the highest overclocking profile gives better cache performance overall. In all these tests the Black Edition accelerates past the slower rated Mushkin example. So with a combination of tighter timings and good frequency overclock the Black Edition can be encouraged into providing even better results no doubt.

Street Fighter IV Benchmark

http://downloads.guru3d.com/Street-Fighter-IV-Benchmark-download-2310.html

Test whether your hardware is up to scratch for the PC release of Street Fighter 4. Capcom has released Street Fighter 4 PC benchmark tool, allowing you to test how well the fighter will run on your computer or if you simply want to oggle it in motion. The 397MB download contains several bouts, filled with hadoukens and kicks to the face. You can also rate your system the old-fashioned way — against the requirements. A tool which allows you to measure the performance for your PC.

The Street Fighter IV Benchmark reveals very little because the results are in fact very similar. I’ve a distinct feeling the architecture on this game isn’t as complex as the other titles available for testing. The Black Edition kit still performs admirably nonetheless.

Unreal Tournament 3 Benchmark

http://downloads.guru3d.com/Unreal-Tournament-3-Benchmark-Tool-download-1816.html

Unreal Tournament is a popular FPS for the PC and has always featured highly in benchmarks. It’s engine is testing, and will endeavour to separate performance where performance is due. This benchmark tool by Guru3D allows benchmarks on many maps/environments within the game and outputs minimum, maximum and average FPS making it an excellent tool to determine performance gains.

In the UT3 Benchmark the Black Edition memory performs very well, as you can see increasing that frequency allows for small gains in FPS. Although with FPS this high, 10-20 FPS isn’t going to be that noticeable to the human eye. But the strong performance is there and its something to be pleased about.

Mafia II Benchmark

Mafia II is the undisputed gangster action/adventure game by 2K Czech. Companied with the game is a benchmark test that lasts for over 2 minutes, at the end of this action fly routine the minimum, maximum and average FPS are displayed giving you a good assumption of how Mafia II will run on the given system

Rather strangely this benchmark test revels at the lower frequency of 1600MHz the Black Edition memory performs better than at 1800MHz. Bear in mind though, the timings are tighter than this has obviously allowed for slightly better ingame performance. At 2000MHz Mafia II simply wouldn’t load which is quite strange as all the other benchmarks were allowed to perform at this speed rating. Perhaps due to the benchmark being unoptimised it has underlying issues that need to be addressed.

Conclusion

The OCZ Black Edition 1600MHz DDR3 kit has shown that it is a great performer out of the packet and has massive headroom for overclocking ability. I was able to overclock the modules by up to 400MHz, and this was with very little tinkering of settings and I am fairly certain with further investigation – by tweaking voltages, timings and frequencies this memory can go further. By further I don\’t just mean higher frequencies, because as we have seen it isn\’t all about greater DRAM frequency but a combination of tight timings, supported with good DRAM frequency.

One of the benefits of having such great performing memory with lots of potential is that it doesn\’t conflict with any other hardware within the motherboard arena. It has low profile heatspreaders and fits snuggly into the lanes on any DDR3 ready motherboard allowing you to get on by with even the biggest of CPU coolers.

Retailing at £110 the OCZ Black Edition DDR3 memory but can be had for under £100 at various places which makes it a decent buy if you are on the AMD platform. Of course, going down the AMD route means that you are settling with a dual channel kit as opposed to a triple channel kit which does have its benefits because most kits of this speed rating start from around the £160 mark.

Pros
+ Very easy to overclock
+ Affordable
+ Great clearance for CPU Coolers
+ Lifetime warranty

Cons
– There really are none

Based upon the impressions the Black Edition kit has left me with, it is my pleasure to award OCZ with the Gold Award.