It’s now happening, DDR3 is making its way into the market, and with a vengeance. DDR3 vs DDR2 at a clock-for-clock basis tends to give DDR2 a slight lead, this is due to lower latencies. However, DDR3 has managed one thing from the start, when DDR2 made its appearance on the market it only hit with a 400MHz clock rate, this was the same as DDR, and clock-for-clock DDR was faster with lower latencies. DDR3 has come out on the market and already passed the speeds DDR2 was capable of.
DDR2 struggled to break over 1200MHz, where DDR3 already has a JEDEC standard for 1333MHz, which indicates its ability to scale and clock well beyond DDR2’s wildest dreams.
OCZ
Given the prematurity of DDR3 in the market thus far, OCZ’s DDR3 modules have really pushed the barrier for overclocking systems. No longer is the memory a bottleneck, as you can now expect to hit 800MHz with the modules. If only your FSB could go this high, a 1:1 ratio would be nice. To this end OCZ gets our thumbs up and Editors Choice Award.
Kingston
Kingston’s memory modules are pretty competitive to that of the OCZ modules. However, in order to run their rated 1375MHz, you need to go straight to 1.7v, so if you’re getting a P35 board with limited or no voltage increase options on the board, you’re stuck here, whereas as OCZ can run 1333MHz with the default 1.5v.
Geil
Geil’s modules were quite fast. However, we are disappointed that they haven’t pushed DDR3 to its limits. If OCZ can get 1333MHz, and Kingston can get 1375MHz, why not Geil? Also, the modules we were sent from them only added up to a 1GB kit, and their rating of 1066MHz stock simply doesn’t excite us too much.
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