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Memory is a rather unexciting component, but usually a fairly complaint one, thanks in most part to JEDEC, the standards authority in the memory industry. The history of RAM has been interesting to say the least and it is quite remarkable how the industry has gone from DIPs to DDR3 DIMMs in a relatively short space of time.

DDR3 has grown at a fairly rapid speed since its inception and now boasts speeds in the region of 2GHz and at voltages much lower than that of DDR2. The OCZ PC3-14400 NVIDIA SLI-Ready Edition kit has a rated speed of 1800MHz with a rated voltage of l.9v, a significant leap from DDR2-800 kits that require 2.0v to run stable and yet still fairly high for DDR3. Timings are significantly higher than DDR2 kits but not unreasonable. The OCZ kit’s stock timings are 8-8-8-27 which is not the lowest but not unbearable at these speeds.

RAM usually runs at its rated speed but if you possess the knowledge and determination you can get more out of it. OCZ is a brand that prides itself on providing the ability to overclock its memory and even provides warranty cover for over-volting the memory. We wish more memory manufacturers would follow OCZ’s lead with regards to its warranty cover of voltages higher than the stock.

These modules also feature version two of Nvidia’s Enhanced Performance Profiles. EPP was given the name SLI-ready by the marketing department. EPP is basically extra information on the SPD that provides the motherboard with automatic overclocking details.

In other words, the system can overclock the memory on the fly while still remaining within the known limits of the memory. Manufacturers like OCZ and Corsair have been crucial to the development of this extra feature and this only serves to make overclocking easier for budding enthusiasts. EPP however, only works on Nvidia chipset-based motherboards.

The OCZ PC3-14400 NVIDIA SLI-Ready Edition kit that we tested failed to achieve anything close to its rated speed and it wasn’t for lack of trying. Nothing we did – including adjusting the memory multiplier and FSB speed – could get the modules up to the rated 1800MHz. Voltages were adjusted to different levels to see if it was somehow related to the voltage. The motherboard used was a Gigabyte EP45T-DS3R, which lists these particular modules on its memory compatibility list.

Failing to achieve the rated speed was a serious disappointment so we had to bench the RAM at 1333MHz, which was the only speed the system would boot at. Results were as expected for such miserable speeds and they will do little to impress. Interestingly, OCZ adds a little disclaimer saying that memory used in a quad core system may need to run slower than rated. Not that we have ever seen this problem occur, but even if it were true we would expect a drop of 100MHz, and not nearly 500MHz.

For a kit that costs so much, the failure to achieve the rated speed is unacceptable. The fact that this kit comes from such a reputable manufacturer is another shocker. Unfortunately, memory is a lottery but it should never be this random. Normally when you buy a kit of memory the chance that it could overclock properly is unknown; some kits overclock remarkably well while others can barely achieve any speeds faster than their rated one.

After spending a considerable amount of time testing these modules and trying our hardest to get them to their rated speed, an act that no consumer should ever have to worry about, we cannot give these modules the thumbs up.

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Tags: 14400, Nvidia, SLIReady

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 4:29 am and is filed under Hardware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.