GeIL Value DDR2-1000 PC2-8000
Performance:
GeIL's website states the GX21GB8000DC and GX22GB8000DC 1GHz parts were tested on various Intel 955 motherboards from ASUS, MSI, Abit, and Gigabyte. For our testing in this review, we turned to Abit and their AW8-MAX motherboard, which uses the i955X Chipset + ICH7R and come with all of the bells and whistles and even a few extra ASICs. The successor to the AW8-MAX will be the i975X-powered AW8D-MAX upon its release. This test setup also used an Intel Pentium D 820 dual-core processor.
| Hardware Components | |
| Processor: | Intel Pentium D 820 (2.80GHz) |
| Motherboard: | Abit AW8-MAX (i955X) |
| Memory: | 2 x 512MB GeIL Value DDR2-1000 2 x 512MB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 |
| Graphics Card: | Leadtek PX7800GTX 256MB |
| Hard Drives: | Seagate 200GB SATA 2 |
| Optical Drives: | Sony DVD-RW Sony DVD-ROM |
| Cooling: | SilverStone Nitrogon NT03 Sytrin KuFormula VF1 Plus |
| Case: | Chenming ATX Server |
| Power Supply: | SilverStone Strider ST56F 560W |
| Software Components | |
| Operating System: | Fedora Core 4 |
| Linux Kernel: | 2.6.15-1.1833_FC4smp (x86_64) |
| GCC - GNU Compiler: | 4.0.0 |
| Graphics Driver: | NVIDIA 1.0-8178 |
| X.Org: | 6.8.2 |
For benchmarking the GeIL modules, we used Enemy Territory, LAME Compilation, LAME Encoding, FreeBench, and RAMspeed. Doom 3 and Quake 4 were not used this time around due to compatibility issues with the latest kernel that would cause stack traces and quit abnormally. Memory stability and diagnostics were executed with memtest86+ v1.65 in addition to our standard 2.6 kernel Linux tests. Throughout all of the testing, Abit's official (and latest) BIOS 16 was used on the AW8-MAX v1.0. For a set of comparison numbers, we also executed the same benchmarks in the same setup using Crucial's Ballistix DDR2-800 2 x 512MB modules. With the GeIL DDR2-1000 tests, we ran the memory and CPU at their stock speeds and timings, followed by tightening up the timings to 3-4-4-8 and respectively increasing the voltages (these modules were unable to run 3-3-3-8). After that we ran the memory at DDR2-800 speeds with SPD timings to compare them directly against the Crucial Ballistix RAM, and finally sought the maximum frequency at which the memory would run stable. Adjusting the CPU:DRAM ratio to 1:2, we managed to run the GeIL GX21GB8000DC to DDR2-960MHz; pushing the frequency any further would result in stability issues and memory errors, followed by ultimately failing to boot. During this, the timings were at 5-5-5-15 and the RAM voltage was maxed to 2.30V. In this specific Abit AW8-MAX configuration, the RAM was unable to surpass DDR2-960MHz, which is likely due to the motherboard and/or processor combination. Below is the rundown of memory testing scenarios.
2800MHz (200MHz x 14) - DDR2-667MHz @ 5-5-5-15 - 1.80V
2800MHz (200MHz x 14) - DDR2-667MHz @ 3-4-4-8 - 2.00V
3360MHz (240MHz x 14) - DDR2-800MHz @ 5-5-5-15 - 2.05V
3360MHz (240MHz x 14) - DDR2-960MHz @ 5-5-5-15 - 2.30V
Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800: 3360MHz (240MHz x 14) - DDR2-800MHz @ 5-5-5-15 -
2.00V