PNY’s new XLR8 RAM is available in two speeds PC2-8500 running 1066MHz with 5-5-5-15 latencies on 2.2V of power and PC2-6400 running at 800MHz. Both sets of RAM are SLI-Ready and have EPP. Today we are going to be looking at the faster PC2-8500 memory in a 2GB (2x1GB) dual channel kit. PNY uses a heat sink design that looks sort of like a comb. The black colored design has spikes that help remove heat from the memory. The required voltage for the memory is 2.2 V and in my test board the memory was automatically set at the correct voltages and timings thanks to the EPP support with my NVIDIA 680i Mainboard.
Once installed I was able to verify with CPU-Z that the Ram was running at the advertised speeds thanks to the SLI-Ready nature and the EPP settings, even the voltage was set correctly automatically. All testing of the PNY XLR8 PC2-8500 RAM was performed on a test machine with the following settings:
- CPU- Intel QX6700
- Mainboard- NVIDIA 680i
- Video- XFX 8800 GTX SLI
To test the PNY XLR8 PC2-8500 RAM I played lots of video game son the system as well as used the RAM to benchmark several video cards. I never ran into any issues that could be attributed to problems with the Ram modules and the machine performed flawlessly. To benchmark the RAM directly I used SiSoft Sandra Lite XI and ran the Memory Bandwidth, Memory & Cache, and Memory Latency benchmarks on the system. The test results are below:
Benchmark Results
RAM Bandwidth Int Buff'd iSSE2 : 5639 MB/s
RAM Bandwidth Float Buff'd iSSE2 : 5639 MB/s
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.
Int Buff'd iSSE2 (Integer STREAM) Results Breakdown
Assignment : 5421MB/s
Scaling : 5435MB/s
Addition : 5858MB/s
Triad : 5844MB/s
Data Item Size : 16 byte(s)
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 66% (estimated)
Float Buff'd iSSE2 (Float STREAM) Results Breakdown
Assignment : 5444MB/s
Scaling : 5425MB/s
Addition : 5849MB/s
Triad : 5838MB/s
Data Item Size : 16 byte(s)
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 66% (estimated)
Performance Test Status
Run ID : QUAD on Monday, April 09, 2007 at 10:15:12 AM
Memory Used by Test : 512MB
NUMA Support : No
SMP Test : No
Total Test Threads : 1
Multi-Core Test : Yes
SMT Test : No
Dynamic MP/MT Load Balance : No
Processor Affinity : P0C0T0
System Timer : 2.7GHz
Page Size : 4kB
Use Large Memory Pages : No
Features
SSE Technology : Yes
SSE2 Technology : Yes
SSE3 Technology : Yes
Supplemental SSE3 Technology : Yes
HTT - Hyper-Threading Technology : No
Chipset 1
Model : NVIDIA Corp C55 Host Bridge
Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 267MHz (1068MHz data rate)
Width : 64-bit
Maximum Bus Bandwidth : 8544MB/s (estimated)
Logical/Chipset 1 Memory Banks
Memory Controller in Processor : No
Benchmark Results
Memory Latency (Random Access) : 71 ns
Speed Factor : 62.6
Results Interpretation : Lower index values are better.
Benchmark Breakdown
1kB Range : 3.0 clk (~1.1 ns)
4kB Range : 3.0 clk (~1.1 ns)
16kB Range : 3.0 clk (~1.1 ns)
64kB Range : 14.1 clk (~5.3 ns)
256kB Range : 15.7 clk (~5.9 ns)
1MB Range : 16.1 clk (~6.1 ns)
4MB Range : 28.9 clk (~10.8 ns)
16MB Range : 62.7 ns (167.1 clk)
64MB Range : 71.0 ns (189.3 clk)
Performance Test Status
Run ID : QUAD on Monday, April 09, 2007 at 10:13:36 AM
System Timer : 2.7GHz
Memory Access : Random
Processor
Model : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU @ 2.66GHz
Speed : 2.67GHz
Performance Rating : PR4534 (estimated)
Cores per Processor : 4 Unit(s)
Type : Quad-Core
L2 On-board Cache : 2x 4MB ECC Synchronous, ATC, 16-way set, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing
Chipset 1
Model : Nvidia Corp C55 Host Bridge
Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 267MHz (1068MHz data rate)
Width : 64-bit
Maximum Bus Bandwidth : 8544MB/s (estimated)
Logical/Chipset 1 Memory Banks
Memory Controller in Processor : No
Benchmark Results
Combined Index : 29736 MB/s
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.
Speed Factor : 118.3
Results Interpretation : Lower index values are better.
Float SSE2 Cache/Memory Results Breakdown
Data Item Size : 16 byte(s)
Buffering Used : No
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Performance Test Status
Run ID : QUAD on Monday, April 09, 2007 at 10:09:37 AM
NUMA Support : No
SMP Test : No
Total Test Threads : 4
Multi-Core Test : Yes
SMT Test : No
Dynamic MP/MT Load Balance : No
Processor Affinity : P0C0T0 P0C1T0 P0C2T0 P0C3T0
System Timer : 2.7GHz
Page Size : 4kB
Use Large Memory Pages : No
Processor
Model : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU @ 2.66GHz
Speed : 2.67GHz
Performance Rating : PR18136 (estimated)
Cores per Processor : 4 Unit(s)
Type : Quad-Core
L2 On-board Cache : 2x 4MB ECC Synchronous, ATC, 16-way set, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing
Features
SSE Technology : Yes
SSE2 Technology : Yes
SSE3 Technology : Yes
Supplemental SSE3 Technology : Yes
HTT - Hyper-Threading Technology : No
Chipset 1
Model : Nvidia Corp C55 Host Bridge
Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 267MHz (1068MHz data rate)
Width : 64-bit
Maximum Bus Bandwidth : 8544MB/s (estimated)
Logical/Chipset 1 Memory Banks
Memory Controller in Processor : No
After running the Sandra tests I overclocked the tests I overclocked the RAM to see how far I could push it with manual overclocks. I was able with very little effort to get the PNY XLR8 PC2-8500 RAM up to 1200MHz with 5-5-5-13 latencies. At these settings the RAM performed flawlessly and was stable during benchmarks without issue.
