Testing (continued):
3DMark06:
The 2006 edition of 3DMark offers a sampling of tests that are used to develop a composite score to reflect your system's gaming potential. The results are presented in unitless "Marks", and higher is better. The graph below shows the results from the test system with the display set to 1280x1024 and No AA.
Now here is a test that the OCZ System Elite kit can be proud of; putting up much higher numbers than the other kits while at default speed, and then throwing another 22 Marks on top of their lead when run at the tighter timings.
Considering how tight the results were on the first two benchmarks, the Crucial Ballistix and OCZ System Elite default speed tests were run twice to confirm the larger difference on this test. When the second set of results came up within +/- 2 Marks of the originals, I was satisfied that the test was accurate.
Super Pi / Mod1.5 XS:
Super Pi is a simple program designed to calculate Pi to the number of decimal places as selected by the user. In the process, it keeps track of how long it takes, and this time can be used to benchmark the processing power of your system. Lower values are better, and the graph below details the results as the system was set to calculate Pi to one million units. Although all of the results are quite close, the OCZ kit edged out the other two at default timings, and was slightly quicker when the timings were tightened.
Super Pi and 3DMark06 were not run at 900 MHz DDR2 speed. It was prior to these tests that the system became unstable at these speeds, and the focus was then shifted to lower latency operation, as opposed to overclocking.
Overall, the test results exceeded my expectations based on how this memory kit is marketed. But, looking back at the prices of the three kits compared shows that this isn't the value leader of the bunch.
