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 The Bombe at Work |  | The first Bombe is completed. Based partly on the design of the Polish “Bomba,” a mechanical means of decrypting Nazi military communications during WWII, the British Bombe design was greatly influenced by the work of computer pioneer Alan Turing and others. Many bombes were built. Together they dramatically improved the intelligence gathering and processing capabilities of Allied forces. [Computers] |
Seagate Momentus 7200.2 160GB Notebook Drive
When Seagate made the announcement of their Momentus 5400.3 160GB drive early last year, the crowds were in awe. Well, I was. I had been using a 60GB drive for months prior to that time, so I understood how much of a burden a notebook can be when you are lacking storage space. Now more than ever, the digital age is filling up our hard drives faster than we can blink. Music collections and even photography can weigh in the 100's of gigabytes. So when a new high-end notebook drive is announced, we pay attention.
The Momentus 5400.3 160GB was one of the few products we've reviewed that we really couldn't find a fault with. If anything, it was a pricey at launch, but that's to be expected. However, it wasn't the perfect choice for enthusiasts or mobile gamers, since it was not 7200 RPM. It can be argued how much importance this actually would be, but for those who want the fastest load times, they had to step back and wait out for the next offering.
Fast forward an entire year and we now have the 7200RPM model we've been waiting for. Besides the fact that it's faster overall, there is another large benefit as well. When the Momentus 5400.3 first launched, it retailed for $330USD. Todays Momentus 7200.2 160GB model will retail for just under $200. Progress, gotta love it! Without further ado, let's take a look at everything the drive has to offer, then compare it's performance to the competition.
Closer Look
Without looking at the specs, it's easy to know what to expect from a 7200 drive compared to a 5400. Read and Write speeds will be improved in addition to latencies and seek times. Because of the faster speed though, it results in higher power consumption. Still, not a huge increase there despite the immediate speed bonuses.
Specification | Momentus 5400.3 160GB | Momentus 7200.2 160GB |
| Interface Option | Ultra ATA/100 | Up to SATA 3Gb/s NCQ |
| Sustained Internal Speed Sustained External Speed | 44MB/s 100MB/s | 59MB/s 300MB/s |
| Cache, Multisegmented | 8MB | 8MB |
| Average Seek (msec) | 12.5 | 11 |
| Average Latency (msec) | 5.6 | 4.17 |
| Performance Level | 5400 | 7200 |
| Power Seek Read/Write Idle/Standby | 2.0W 2.0W / 1.8W 0.8W / 0.2W | 2.3W 2.1W 0.8W / 0.25W |
| Shock Operating 1msec (Gs) Shock Non-Operating 2msec (Gs) | 350 900 | 300 900 |
| Acoustics Idle (bels) Performance Seek (bels) | 2.3 2.9 | 2.5 2.9 |
The acoustics are also heightened on the faster drive, but it's doubtful you will actually hear it unless you are in a dead silent room. That's been my experience anyway. Here you can see the drive in all it's glory, front and back.
Now that we have that out of the way, let's hop right into testing.
Seagate Savvio 15K
When it comes to computer storage, no one leads the pack quite like Seagate. This is thanks to the fact that they are continually the first out the door with new drives that boast higher densities and good reliability. In the past ~16 months we were graced with the 160GB Momentus laptop drive and also the 750GB Barracudas. We now have a 1TB Barracuda on the horizon.
Enterprise storage is one of Seagates key markets however, so that's where they shift a good deal of focus. Earlier this week they announced their Savvio 15K line-up, 15K meaning 15,000 RPM. The reason this is of interest is because the Savvio comes in a 2.5" frame, unlike all other 15K drives that settle in the same 3.5" chassis like normal desktop drives.
When briefed on the phone, I immediate questioned, "Is this a notebook drive?" to which the reply was, "Haha, no. [You damned noob]" How great would it be to have a 15,000 RPM drive in your notebook? Not great, as it turns out. Even though the technology is completely feasible, the power draw makes it unacceptable for use with a notebook computer. If the laptop is plugged in it shouldn't be a problem, but that's not normally the goal of a "portable" computer.
What does the Savvio boast? According to Seagates numbers, the Savvio is the fastest, most efficient drive available. Period. They note that its 35% faster than a 10,000 RPM 2.5" and even 10% faster than a 15,000 RPM 3.5" desktop drive. The fact that it's faster than a 3.5" drive of equal RPM shows that the Savvio implements new technologies. Improvements are continually being made, which means we may see -faster- and better overall desktop drives in addition to server models, as a result. If you thought the storage market was good now... it's only going to get better. Especially over the next few months.
As mentioned in our intro, the Savvio claims to provide the highest performance per Gigabyte and watt. So, it uses less power than 3.5" drives and performs better. Where's the loss? The ultimate density is not as high as 15K drives, which currently have 150GB models available. Instead, when the Savvio is released later this quarter, we will see both 36GB and 73GB models... not much of a surprise. Also at this time, pricing is completely unknown. However, compare the fact that equal speed 73GB desktop drives retail for between $350 - $400, seeing a price tag of at least $500 for the 73GB Savvio will not be that surprising.
Who's the Savvio designed for? At it's heart, Savvio is an enterprise drive so it's designed for use anywhere a high performance drive is required. This could be large servers or HDD intensive workstations. Although the Savvio at its release will lack high density of larger drives, it's designed primary for speed and performance per watt. Most uses for this drive don't require large densities, which is why the 36GB may very well outsell the 73GB until prices go down. High-traffic file servers (think thousands of connections) would benefit most from the larger density, in addition to far more than one drive.
Desktop users with big wallets don't need to fret though. If you want that blazing performance and for some reason don't want the larger 150GB 3.5" drive, you can still use the Savvio in your normal desktop PC with a serial attached SCSI (SAS) card. This is my solution, and the one that I will be using in our full review of the drive next month. This is still not a feasible solution for most though, as these cards get rather pricey themselves.
- Savvio Overview
- First 15K 2.5" to market
- 36GB & 74GB Capacities
- Top of class Perf/Watt Perf/GB
- 30% less power draw over other 15K drives
- 70% smaller frame over 3.5" drives
- For use in SCSI, SAS, FC
- Savvio Specifications (Based on the 73GB)
- Form Factor - 111x70x15mm
- Reliability - 0.55% / 1.6M Hours (Compared to 0.62% / 1.4M Hours with Cheetah 15K.5)
- Unrecoverable Error Rate - 1 sector in 10E16
- Seek Time - 2.9ms (Compared to 3.5ms with Cheetah 15K.5)
- Cache - 16MB
- Power (Idle, SAS) - 5.8W (Compared to 8.4W with Cheetah 15K.5)
- Shock - 60 / 300 G's
The fact that a 2.5" is capable of 15K RPM is impressive. Consider the fact that most notebook hard drives are 5400RPM or lower, but that is more to save power rather than to halt performance. The rule of thumb is that the higher the density, the lower the overall speed. This was proven a few months ago when I took Toshibas 200GB 2.5" drive for a spin, which has a rotation speed of 4200. I consider a 74GB 2.5" capable of 15,000 RPM to be an engineering feat.
Seagate Barracuda 750GB ES
Network storage is vital to any network, large or small. The demand for large and reliable storage has always been around. It seems that no matter how large a hard drive is, it's just a few short months from being not large enough. A good example of this is YouTube. With the ability to upload videos and share them with the world, the demand for large and reliable storage solutions are always in demand. Even for file server purposes in an enterprise/business environment, reliable storage is an absolute necessity for any business to maintain their day to day operations.
One company that always comes to mind is Seagate Technology. They are arguably the best maker of storage solutions on the market today. With the recent acquisition of Maxtor, there are really only a handful of major players in the storage game. With these needs of the industry in mind, Seagate has taken the challenge and brought their ES (Enterprise Storage) to market. Ranging in sizes from 250GB up to 750GB, the Seagate Barracuda ES is Seagate's answer to the storage size question.
On our plate today, Seagate has been kind enough to send out not one Barracuda ES 750GB drive, but 4. That's 3 terabytes of storage. There are many ways that we could test these hard drives out but for today, we are going to work with a single drive, testing it in a stand alone fashion. In a few weeks, we are going to revisit this hard drive and use it and it's three other friends in an in-depth, comprehensive RAID article. That however is for another place and time.
The Barracuda ES 750GB offers a 16MB cache, much larger than the normal 8MB that most hard drives have. Seagate also uses perpendicular recording in this drive as well. The quick summary of perpendicular recording is that it allows far more data to be packed in closer together on the platter resulting in more data in the same amount of area compared to a standard hard drive not using perpendicular recording. The more data that can be fit onto each platter means that more data can be read with each revolution of the platter itself. Perpendicular recording can be thanked for this.
Seagate give the ES line of hard drives a staggering 1 million hours of MTBF (mean time between failure) which means that this drive will be around for a long time, reliably storing all of your precious information. It should also be mentioned that the hard drives BIOS will also spin down when not in use to even further prevent unneeded wear and tear on the hard drive.
For our tests, we are going to be using a few real world file transfers as well as a couple of program's results. We will be using HD Tach, HD Tune, PC Mark 2005 and Sandra 2007 to get the information that we need for the review and will be conducting 4 separate transfers for real life results. The real life tests will include one solid 4GB file, one 4GB folder with many folders and many files, one 4GB folder with many files and few folders and one solid 8GB file as well. I will record the time it takes to physically move these folders and files from one area of the hard drive to the other.
To add to the versatility of the Barracuda ES, you have the option to switch between SATA I and SATA II by removing a small jumper on the back of the hard drive. That is if your motherboard should not have SATA II capabilities.
- Specs and Testing
- Interfaces SATA 3Gb/s 2Gb/s Fibre Channel
- Capacity (GB) 750, 500, 400, 320, 250
- Spindle Speed (RPM) 7200
- Cache, Multi-segmented (Mbytes) 8, 16
- Seek Time, Read/Write (average, msec) 8.5/9.5
- Reliability Rating at Full 24x7 Operation (AFR) 0.73%
- Transfer Rate, Sustained (Mbytes/sec) 72 or 78 (750GB only) 67
- Power Consumption (watts, idle) 9.3
- Rotational Vibration (rad/sec2) 12.5
- Limited Warranty (years) 5
The test machine that we will be using for this review is as follows:
- Specs and Testing
- Intel Core 2 Duo 'Conroe' E6600
- DFI Infinity 975 X/G
- Kingston RAM Hyper X 6400 2GB
- Enermax Galaxy 850W PSU
- Seagate Barracuda 320GB SATA HDD
- Windows XP SP2
- ICH7R Southbridge for SATA II
There are 4 main hard drive benchmarks that we run here at Techgage. In no particular order of importance, they are HD Tach, Sandra 2007, PC Mark' 05 and a standard real world environment benchmark. As stated earlier, the real world test includes the transfer of large solid files and folders with many different fields and folders.
Toshiba 200GB 4200RPM 2.5" Hard Drive
One thing is for certain. The mobile storage market is one that's constantly moving, but has yet to catch up to it's desktop counterparts. Earlier this year, Seagate released their Momentus 160GB mobile drive, based on PMR technologies. Thanks to PMR, new heights can be reached. It's responsible also for Seagates top desktop drive, the Barracuda 750GB.
While the top desktop drive is a staggering size though, the highest end mobile drive up to this point has been the 160GB. That's quite a step down, but is still cream of the crop when it comes to your laptop storage. With the great density, performance is held back when comparing to a standard 7200RPM drive. However, most who use laptops would appreciate the extra storage space more than a few extra MB/s.
Nobody thought that anyone would touch Seagate for a while, but a few months ago Toshiba first announced their 200GB mobile drive... a full 40GB over Seagates best offering. As mentioned in the intro though, more does not always mean better.
Closer Look
The drive arrived in a very secure package... the drive really had no chance to move around during shipment. The antistatic bag of course contains the hard drive, and has a packet of silica salt for added "freshness". The exact model number for this drive is MK2035GSS, and at first glance it's difficult to make out what density it actually is. However, below the serial number you will find just that, in addition to it's sector count.
The drive looks identical to most other 2.5" drives you have seen, although one thing threw me for a loop. I had not realized until actually looking at the drive, that it is S-ATA II (ATA-7) based, so it could not be used in my two and a half year old laptop. Luckily enough, it's connections are identical to the S-ATA drives you have in your rig, so testing on my desktop proved to be no problem.
You may immediately think that due to it's S-ATA II status, it should prove to be a far smoother, and speedier ride over the Seagate 160GB. That's not the case. This drive is 4200RPM, as opposed to Seagates 160GB which is 5400RPM. So before even testing, the speed differences are going to be clear. 4200RPM is slow, any way you look at it. It's this slow due to the fact that they had to slam 200GB into it's ultra-thin frame. This is also likely why we did not see a 7200RPM version of Seagates 160GB model. You win some, or lose some. Depending on how you look at this drive and what you plan to use it for, the speed may not be a huge concern.
Here are the official specs given to us by Toshiba:
- 200GB capacity
- Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) combined with Tunnel Magneto-resistive Recording (TMR) Head Technology
- Rotational Speed of 4,200rpm
- 9.5mm High
- 12ms Average Seek Time
- ATA-7 Interface
- 150MB/sec Transfer Rate
- 8MB Buffer
- 300,000 MTTF Hours
This feature-list seems to be a tad dishonest, in the sense that 150MB/s is hardly expected from a 4200RPM. 150MB/s however, is the spec for S-ATA 2.
If those features were not enough information for you, perhaps you'd enjoy some specification action.
- Data Storage Physical
- Per drive, formatted - 200.050GB
- Data Heads - 4
- Number of Disks - 2
- Logical Configuration
- Heads - 16
- Cylinders - 16,383
- User Sectors/Track at zone 0 - 63
- Logical Blocks (LBA) - 390,721,968
- Data Transfer Rate
- Max transfer rate to host - 150MB/sec
- Seek Time
- Track-to-track - 2ms
- Average - 12ms
- Maximum - 22ms
- Nominal Power Requirements
- Logic - +5V(5%)
- Start - 4.5watts (max)
- Seeking - 2.4watts (typ)
- Reading/Writing - 1.85watts (typ)
- Idle - 0.85watts (typ)
- Standby - 0.25watts (typ)
- Sleep - 0.15watts (typ)
- Other
- Rotational Speed - 4,200rpm
- Average Latency - 5.55ms
- Interface - ATA-7
- Buffer - 8MB
- Dimensions/Weight
- Height - 0.37" (9.5mm)
- Width - 2.75" (69.85mm)
- Depth - 3.94" (100mm)
- Weight - 3.46 oz (98g)
- Ambient Temperature
- Operating - 41 - 131F (5 to 55C)
- Non-Operating - -4 - 140F (-20 to 60C)
- Shipping - -40 - 158F (-40 to 70C)
- Vibration and Shock
- Operating Vibration - 9.8 m/s2 (1.0G), 5 - 500 Hz
- Operating Shock - 325g/2ms
- Non-Operating Shock - 850g/1ms
- Error Rates
- Non-recoverable - 1 in 1013 bits
- Seek - 1 in 106 seeks
- Other
- Preventive Maintenance - None
- MTTF (Power on hours) - 300,000
- Product Life - 5 years or 20,000 power ON hours
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB
"I need more storage" is something I seem to say with each year that passes. I am sure I am not alone in this. Only a few years ago, 100GB proved to be enough storage for most anyone, but then the digital explosion occurred. DVD backups, 20,000 music files, games that have 10GB installs, et cetera. Many resort to burning their goods and grabbing them when they need, instead of keeping them on the hard drive due to lack of space.
This is becoming less and less of a requirement though since storage prices are so low now, that you could pick up a couple huge storage drives for the price of a midrange video card. As I mentioned in the intro, there are 500GB and 750GB drives available, but they retail for $259.99US and $399.99US, respectively. These are great prices. When we reviewed the 750GB in May, it retailed for $499.99US, so there is an instant 20% drop in price. These large capacity drives though are designed really for people who want the -most- storage space in the smallest area. IE: 1TB with two drives as opposed to three. Video production or some other intensive multi-media processes come to mind.
What about the regular Joe, though? I am one of those people who does have quite a large music collection, but I'm also a budget shopper so I don't mind getting a smaller drive if the price is right. I have mentioned that the 500GB version of this drive retails for $259.99US, or $0.52 per GB. The 320GB we are looking at today retails for $94.99US, or $0.30 per GB. That's quite a substantial savings! To put things in perspective, for the same price as a single 750GB drive, you could pick up four of these for 1.28TB in a RAID configuration if you wish. That's a -lot- of storage for such a low price! Great times in the storage market!
For some though, price doesn't matter that much if the performance is sluggish. That's one thing we will touch on in this review. I will be comparing this drive to the recently reviewed Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200.9.
Here is some of the official features, as delivered by Seagate themselves.
The Barracuda 7200.10 is the largest, most reliable disc drive around. New perpendicular recording technology supports vertically stored data bits, enabling increased areal density and dependability for workstations and performance PCs. Additionally, the Barracuda 7200.10 is available in SATA 3Gb/s, SATA 1.5Gb/s and ATA/100 interfaces.
- Perpendicular Recording
- Perpendicular Recording increases data density while decreasing moving parts for a more dependable drive.
- Serial ATA 3Gb/s (300MB/s)
- This product is configurable from SATA 1.5Gb/s to SATA 3Gb/s for easy interoperability.
- Adaptive Fly Height
- Adaptive Fly Height offers consistent read/write performance from the beginning to end of your computing workloads.
- Clean Sweep
- Clean Sweep automatically calibrates your drive each time you power up.
- Directed Offline Scan
- Directed Offline Scan runs diagnostics when storage access is not required.
- Seagate SoftSonic
- Seagate SoftSonic motor enables whisper-quiet operation.
- Enhanced G-Force Protection
- Enhanced G-Force Protection defends against handling damage.
- 5 Year Warranty
- This product carries an unprecedented five-year warranty.
For those of you who enjoy knowing every small detail about the product they are considering... eat up:
- Model: ST3320620AS
- Formatted Gbytes (512 bytes/sector) : 320
- Interface : SATA 3Gb/s
- Max. External Transfer Rate (Mbytes/sec) : N/A
- Average Seek (msec) : N/A
- Average Latency (msec) : 4.16
- Multisegmented Cache : 8192
- Spindle Speed (RPM) : 7200
- Logical CHS : 512
- Contact Start-Stops : 16383/16/63
- S.M.A.R.T. capable : Yes
- Nonrecoverable Read Errors per Bits Read : 1 per 1014
- Service Life/Limited Warranty (years) : 5/5
- Power Requirements
- +12 VDC +/-10% (amps typ operating) : 2.8
- +5 VDC +/-5% (amps typ operating) : N/A
- - Seek : 12.6
- - Read/Write : N/A
- - Idle : 9.3
- - Standby : 0.8
- Power Management (watts)
- Environmental
- Operating Temperature (C) : 0 to 60
- Nonoperating Temperature (C) : 70 to -40
- Operating Shock (Gs) @ 2 msec : 68
- Non Operating Shock (Gs) @ 2 msec : 300
- Acoustics,Idle (Bels-typ sound power) : 2.7
- Physical
- Height (mm) : 26.1
- Width (mm) : 101.6 >
- Depth (mm) : 146.99
- Weight (kg) : 635
4GB Trials
It wasn't too long ago that having 1GB worth of total system memory was more than enough for anything you wanted to do. In fact, the majority of people still use 1GB or less, and are content. When a few games were released though, such as FEAR and Battlefield II, people started to see clear benefits of moving up to 2GB worth of ram in their system. Those two games specifically can stress all areas of your system, including GPU, CPU and of course your system memory.
This article is not a review of any 4GB kit, but rather an article explaining the pros and cons of moving up to 4GB. I have spent a lot of time overclocking both DDR1 and DDR2 4GB configurations, so you can expect in-depth performance reports later.
Generally speaking, the better the graphics and higher the resolution a game has, the harder it will be on your ram. I found this out last year when I was conducting tests with the FEAR demo. I found, that simply going from 1GB to 2GB released a lot of stress overall on the system, and gave me far better overall FPS. The same results were found about Battlefield II, but I never personally performed any such tests.
While many people are still using 1GB kits in their PC's, 2GB's are catching on at a very rapid pace. Speaking with one enthusiast memory manufacturer recently, they told me that they now sell *more* 2GB kits than anything else, so the transition is really in full effect. Of course, even with an Ultra High-End system consisting of a top end CPU and Quad-SLi doesn't really need anything more than 2GB. There just isn't a need for it, if you are focusing on one application at a time, such as a game.
There's a certain mystique that some people have about having 4GB worth of ram in their computer. No doubt, there are indeed actual needs for this much memory, but most of these reasons usually have to do with multimedia production. Graphic designers, movie editors and even large Photoshop projects can hog all of your memory, and cry for more.
There are also countless myths, or misunderstanding when it comes to having 4GB in your computer. The first is the fact that the more memory you have in your computer, the slower it will be, in terms of bandwidth. In fact, this is both true and false, depending on your motherboard and CPU configuration. We'll get into that shortly.
One of the most popular myths is that Windows cannot physically see anything above 3GB. Again, this is also true and false. Due to technical 'limitations' or 'fixes' in Windows XP Home and Professional, the Service Pack 2 removed the ability for Windows to see a full 4GB. If you have Windows XP Home/Professional with SP1 still installed, then you should have no issues in seeing the full 4GB. If you have a current install of Windows x64 Professional of Windows Server 2003, then you will see the full 4GB regardless, even with the latest service pack. If for some reason you still don't see 4GB in Windows, it may be due to your motherboard or an option in your BIOS, such as PCI MMIO.
So the ultimate fact is, if you want to see a full 4GB in Windows, you will need either Windows x64 Professional or a standard copy of Home/Professional that has not been updated to SP2. You could also use Server 2003, if that's the version you prefer.
Corsair 2GB
This past March, the annual CeBit conference in Hannover, Germany was held. During that time, Corsair unveiled two new high-end kits. Not playing architecture favorites, one was a DDR kit and the other a DDR2 kit. We took a look at the latter kit a few weeks ago. The 1GB 8500 is undoubtedly some of the fastest memory on the market. Even months after CeBit, there are very few other manufacturers out there willing to take the step up to the 1066MHz plate.
The kit we are taking a look at today became an instant 'hit' so to speak, because it was a kit that power hungry users and enthusiasts crave. To my knowledge, Corsairs 4400PRO kit are the absolutely only 2GB 550MHz modules on the market. That gives them an immediate benefit. Like the 8500PRO, this 4400PRO kit proves that Corsair not only wants to have the fastest memory on the market, but does have some of the fastest memory on the planet.
Last fall, we reviewed Corsairs 2GB 3500PRO kit, which became one of the most wanted kits of the holiday season. That memory proved to have very fast stock speeds, and also had enough flexibility to please enthusiasts. This 4400PRO is similar to that kit, but should prove much faster. Why should you consider this kit over last Falls 3500PRO? Probably because most e-tailers sell the 4400PRO for only a few dollars more!
Closer Look
So what do we get? Well, the modules arrived in the green backed blister pack that every DDR1 PRO kit is encased in. The PRO modules are not ordinary by any standard, because they are the only modules out there that include LED lights at the top. These are activity lights that flicker depending on how much of the memory is currently being used. I am not usually into 'flashy' computer equipment as such, but this proves to be extremely cool looking in any computer. Especially if you are a modder and take pride in your setup.
The heatspreaders are much larger when compared to others on the market, which could be due to the fact that there are LED's slapped in there. They are designed for great heat dissipation also though, and it seems to do quite a good job. Because of the sheer speed of these modules, you may want to consider a fan to keep them cool. I have done a lot of stress testing at stock speeds without a fan and have had no problems, though. But to overclock further and push more voltage into them, a fan would be highly recommended.
On the front sticker of the modules, you can read the timings, model, speed and revision number. Overall, these are some of the coolest looking modules on the market. The PRO series heatspreaders are not new, but they still continue to impress.
Mushkin 1GB HP3200
For our first Mushkin review, we will be taking one of their value kits for a spin. The HP3200 (991433) rolls in at PC3200 speeds as the name implies, and 2-3-3-6 timings, at a modest 2.6v. These modules use Mosel SAT-5B chips, so we immediately know that overclocking these babies may not be a huge possibility, but we can't conclude until we try! Let's first take a look at the packaging and the modules themselves.
The modules arrived in a clear blister pack that are oh so popular these days. Mushkins blister pack keeps the modules somewhat safer than most though, because each side has a is slightly melted together so that the pack stays closed until you need to open it. Because the package is not that clear, it doesn't really do the modules justice. Once they are taken out of the package, they look great.
The heatspreaders on these modules are not as snazzy as some other Mushkin products, but the color won me over. I love this color blue, and if it was glossier.. whoo wee Instead of an embossed logo, the value modules have is printed with colored ink. What is great about these heatspreaders though, is the design. The top of the heatspreader has 'hoops' that arise above the modules themselves to help dissipate heat better. Many memory manufactuers close off the top of the modules so air can't really escape, but this way makes sense.
Because of the design and material that the heatspreader is made of, the modules overall are very light and should prove easy to cool with any sort of active cooling. You'll notice from the sticker on the modules that the timings are 2-3-3, but it doesn't include the tras. CPU-Z detected the default tras to be 6, and that's how I concluded the correct speeds to set in the BIOS.
Ok, well since these modules use Mosel chips, I knew I had a better chance of winning the lottery than actually finding success in overclocking these. I don't even play the lottery! At any rate though, I was definitely up for the challenge and looked forward to seeing if I could squeeze any extra performance out of them.
After running an 8 hours session of MemTest 1.60 at default speeds, no errors were brought about so the fun of overclocking could begin. One thing I quickly found out, was that lowering the trcp and trp to 2 was not going to happen. At default speeds, I tried to run 2-2-2 as opposed to 2-3-3 between 2.6 and 3.2v and the computer would simply not get past POST. Max overclock I could hit at default timings was 210, or DDR420 speeds.
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