Over the past few years, RAM has gone through some
changes. For the most part, speed and quality, which are the most important.
Intro
Not long ago, PC-66 was king of the high performance pc
market. Those days are long gone. With the recent introduction of Rambus and DDR,
the RAM market is wide open. In this article, let’s focus on what seems to be
the “status quo” of memory in the pc’s of today. PC-100 and PC-133.
PC-133 has literally taken hold of the high performance pc
market. For gamers, there is nothing else. Although PC-100 is still going strong
in the “manufactured” pc market and with the not so hardcore pc nut (
or others that just don’t want to get rid of that PC-100). Many people ask,
“What is the difference?” Well, for starters, speed. Speed in your pc
is what gives you bragging rights. Whether it be playing games, running
Photoshop or number crunching at work, speed does play a massive role. Quality
is also an important issue. Sure, you could look on pricewatch and find a stick
of PC-100 or PC-133 for under $100. But it is not of the best quality or
manufactured under the highest quality control. For some people, that does not
make a difference. For others, it means a world of difference.
In the test review for this article, I am comparing two
different types and brands of RAM.
- “Super PC” PC-100
- “Mushkin” Rev2
Cas2 PC-133
Both are fine modules in themselves. The “Super PC”
RAM is very fine quality and in my opinion, ranks up there with the best. “Mushkin”
RAM is top of the line RAM. This RAM has been proven time and time again as one
of the top brands of RAM to buy, especially for the hardcore enthusiast. This
review was written as a “Real world” example of what kinds of
performance these RAM modules offer.
Test System Specs
- ABIT KA7 (bios ty)
- Athlon Slot 750/golden orb
- Plextor 12/10/32a
- Creative Annihilator2(stock drivers)
- Ensonique PCI sound
- Adaptec 2940uw scsi controller
- Seagate 18 gig 7200rpm
- 3com 3c905b nic
- Modem Blaster 56k (isa)
- Windows 2000
All memory benchmarks with SiSoft Sandra99
Settings for PC-100
For the PC-100 test, I set my bus speed on the motherboard to
100 via jumpers. In bios, I set cpu speed to user defined and upped the bus
accordingly, one step at a time. I set the memory specs in bios to cas3, 2 way
interleaved. I had to enable memory hole due to soundcard. I ran the
fsb/cpu setting up as far as it would go, until the
pc would not boot. All settings that were run, were stable.
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