OCZ VX Revisited: DDR Updates on DFI nForce4

Test Results: Corsair XMS4404v1.1

To be considered stable for test purposes, Quake3 benchmark, UT2003 Demo, Super PI, Aquamark 3, and Comanche 4 had to complete without incident. Any of these, and in particular Super PI, will crash a less-than stable memory configuration.

Corsair XMS4404v1.1 (DDR550) - 2x512Mb Double-Bank
CPU Ratio at 2.4GHz	Memory Speed	Memory Timings & Voltage	Quake3 fps	Sandra UNBuffered	Sandra Standard Buffered	Super PI 2M places (time in sec)	Wolfenstein - Radar - Enemy Territory fps
12x200	400DDR	2-3-3-6 2.6V 1T	536.5	INT 2653 FLT 2839	INT 6113 FLT 6066	82	113.2
11x218	436DDR	2-3-3-6 2.6V 1T	543.2	INT 2772 FLT 3023	INT 6488 FLT 6419	81	114.0
10x240	480DDR	2-3-3-6 2.8V 1T	553.7	INT 3037 FLT 3243	INT 6723 FLT 6645	80	115.9
9x267	533DDR	2.5-3-3-6 2.8V 1T	562.0	INT 3196 FLT 3477	INT 7084 FLT 7004	77	117.2
9x303 (2.73 Ghz)	Highest Memory Speed	2.5-4-4-6 2.9V 1T	620.7	INT 3403 FLT 3660	INT 7742 FLT 7683	73	131.1
10x280 (2.8 GHz)	Highest CPU/Mem Performance	2.5-4-3-6 2.9V 1T	626.0	INT 3409 FLT 3611	INT 7799 FLT 7707	71	135.8

Corsair was reviewed in Corsair 4400C25: Taking Samsung TCCD to New Heights. It is very interesting to see that the DFI board opens up performance of the Corsair a bit more, allowing use to reach a high of 303 (DDR606) at 1T compared to the 295 (DDR590) top 1T performance in the past review. However, the fastest performance was achieved at 10x280 at faster memory timings of 2.5-4-3-6 and a higher CPU speed of 2.8GHz.

Corsair selected Samsung TCCD chips for absolute best performance at the top and they succeeded in reaching this goal. The compromise was a bit less performance at DDR400 - at least with the modules that we tested. However, we suspect that the timings used by DFI are not the best match to this Corsair memory, since regular TCCD memory rated at DDR400 outperforms the Corsair at the top - results that are the opposite of what we have seen on other nVidia chipset boards. It looks as if Corsair and DFI could squeeze more performance from this combination with some tweaking.

It is interesting in these test results that the faster 9x303 (2.73GHz) cannot match OCZ VX at 2.67GHz. However, at 2.8GHz (10x280), the Corsair TCCD can roughly match performance of VX at 2.67GHz. It is clear that faster 2-2-2 memory timings of the OCZ VX do matter when it comes to performance.