Page 9 - Overclocking Results and Conclusion

Besides carrying a low price tag, the A-DATA Extreme Edition DDR2 800+ actually overclocks pretty well for products in that price range. Once the latencies were loosened to 5-5-5-15, I gave it 2.1V in the BIOS to bring the RAM within its voltage warranty limit. I managed to bring the RAM up to 468MHz Orthos stable (DDR2-936, PC2-7488) -- a decent 17% overclock. This is all done within warranty too.

I tried overvolting the RAM to see what it can do out of warranty limits. The A-DATA Extreme Edition DDR2 800+ does not respond very well to high voltages; I found that 2.2V is the most reasonable when it comes to bringing it to its limits. It managed a pretty decent overclock to 488MHz -- a 22% overclock is more than what I would have expected for RAM in this price segment. This reflects effective operating frequency of DDR2-976 (PC2-7808). Not bad at all.

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The A-DATA Extreme Edition DDR2 800+ 2x1GB memory kit offers very decent performance for the price. Although it trailed consistently to our Micron D9GMH based OCZ Reaper HPC RAM by just those few points at default settings, the difference it makes in everyday computing is negligible -- what really matters is that it performed very consistently against the other RAM in the market today across the board. What really surprised me was its overclocking ability -- managing a 17% overclock, 5-5-5 timings stable at warranty voltage limit is excellent. Give it an additional 0.1V with the same timings, then we've got a 22% overclock, but at the cost of your warranty. Regardless, this is truly more than what I'd expect from RAM in this market segment. If A-DATA improves what their warranty covers (Such as something similar to OCZ's EVP), it will appeal more to overclocking enthusiasts. Generally speaking, if you are looking for DDR2 RAM at an affordable price with a bit of overclocking headroom, the A-DATA Extreme Edition DDR2-800+ 2x1GB is probably not a bad choice.

Special thanks to Vince over at A-DATA for making this review possible.

Starting from April 30, 2007, Number Ratings has been dropped for motherboards, RAM, and graphics cards. This is to ensure the most appropriate ratings reflected without the limits of using numbers. Everything else will continue using the Number Rating System.
More information in our Review Focus.

The A-DATA Extreme Edition DDR2 800+ 2x1GB RAM are affordable DDR2 RAM that probably overclocks better than many others in its market segment. If A-DATA improves what their warranty covers on these RAM, then we've got something at the table that offers you the best of both worlds!

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Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Installation, Test System
3. Benchmark: 3DMark06
4. Benchmark: PCMark05
5. Benchmark: EVEREST CPU
6. Benchmark: EVEREST FPU
7. Benchmark: EVEREST Memory
8. Benchmark: SuperPI, Cinebench 9.5, EVEREST Memory Latency
9. Overclocking Results and Conclusion