Page 2 - A Closer Look, Installation, Test System
As pioneered by OCZ themselves earlier on the last decade, the company's Platinum XTE PC3-16000 2x2GB set (Which I'll refer to OCZ Platinum XTE for short from now on) comes with a large heatspreader that virtually covers the entire green printed circuit board of the module. The aluminum heatspreaders are painted black in color, and has a medium height profile -- by objective standards, it extends about a centimeter above standard height. In my opinion, I found the design of the Platinum XTE RAM to be exceptionally clean and modern. Aluminum is lightweight, and serves as a popularity heat conducting element. However, unlike many competitor products such as Patriot's Viper II Sector 5 and G.SKILL Ripjaws we have reviewed in the past, OCZ decided to use a flat top rather than toothed design with their Platinum XTE heatspreaders. Toothed designs are especially useful for systems equipped with side mounted CPU heatsink fans adjacent to the memory slots, so the RAM can piggy-back off the airflow it generates. In this particular case, OCZ chose to use solid aluminum heatspreaders instead. They are very cool to touch, and feels quite substantial because it is much thicker than the ones found on products such as the G.SKILL Ripjaws. With the Platinum XTEs being medium profile RAM, the said XTE heatspreaders still retains adequate clearance under giganormous heatsinks such as the Noctua NH-D14 we reviewed a few months back. Whether you like to call it marketing gimmick or whatnot, it is almost impossible nowadays to find performance memory without any form of a heatspreader attached, haha. They do undeniably serve a purpose in dissipating heat, but for most memory modules, unless run at a voltage significantly over designed voltages -- which you won't, special thanks to integrated memory controllers on Intel processors -- this feature is certainly not a requirement. But I will admit they look pretty cool in any windowed chassis.
The heatspreader design of the OCZ Platinum XTE modules is symmetrical, which is fairly logical because memory ICs reside on both sides of the PCB. Besides functional purposes, it also improves the look. A small silver label is applied near the western edge of the heatspreader with OCZ's logo, while a larger one with the 'Platinum' branding and a large 'Z' occupies majority of the remaining room. In the gap between the two labels writes 'ddr3 memory' in stylized text. The rest of the XTE heatspreader is all black. Meanwhile, a specification label adjacent to another large silver label -- this time with the OCZ logo and Platinum branding consolidated into one sticker -- can be found on the other side. It lists the kit name (XTE Platinum Series), part number, latencies, bandwidth, voltage, serial number, and the module's memory capacity. The serial number underneath the bar consists of a long string of numeric characters; the last digit after the dash is either a '1' or '2' to indicate they come from a dual channel package.
The heatspreader on the OCZ Platinum XTE RAM is composed of two separate pieces, which can be removed from the PCB independently. The heatspreader is held to the module itself by a strip of thermally conductive adhesive, and each half part of the heatsink is aligned to the center in a symmetrical fashion. The adhesive force between the two heatspreader and memory ICs are not particularly strong, so the user can easily take them off with a hair dryer and a quick careful screwdriver pry without risking any damage to their memory modules.
From our above photo, it should also be clearer on how the heatspreaders are designed. Externally, the pieces bevel outward progressively with creases and lines for aesthetic appeal, and meets its corresponding half piece from the other half piece at the top for a complete symmetrical design. The inner surface is practically flat, with the exception of a slightly raised ledge to compensate for areas where the heatsink does not touch the memory module itself. In the end, if you're going to be pushing your system to the limits with high memory voltages, the heatspreaders may be beneficial to improve system stability and overclocking potential. However, since you won't be going above 1.65V with your Intel Core i5 or Core i7 processor anyway, if you need to remove your RAM sinks to install your CPU heatsink, then the OCZ Platinum XTE PC3-16000 2x2GB would have no problems operating normally either.
A closer look at the memory chips on the OCZ Platinum XTE PC3-16000 2x2GB dual channel memory kit. If you can't read the numbers clearly, it says "X43P1288AK-13D" on each IC. I can't seem to find more information on these chips, so if anyone has idea, please feel free to contact me. There are eight 128MB chips on each side for a total of 2GB on each DIMM. As mentioned on the previous page, these RAM modules run at a frequency of DDR3-2000 with 9-9-9-27 at 1T command rate. Since these RAM are designed for Core i5/i7 processors, they operate at a stock voltage of 1.65V. A pair of 2GB DDR3-2000 DIMMs running at CAS 9 latencies is pretty modest at best. We will cover overclocking right after our regular set of benchmarks in this review.
Our test configuration as follows:
CPU: Intel Core i5-750 @ 4.00 GHz
CPU Cooling: Noctua NH-D14
Motherboard: ASUS P7P55D-E Premium
Graphics: Gigabyte Radeon HD 6850 1GB
Chassis: Cooler Master 690 II Advanced NVIDIA Edition (Noctua NF-S12B FLX, NZXT Sleeved LED Kit)
Storage OCZ Vertex 2 60GB; Western Digital Caviar Blue AAKS 500GB
Power: NZXT HALE90 750W
Sound: Auzentech X-Fi HomeTheater HD
Optical Drive: NEC AD-7170A 18X DVD+/-RW
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional x64
Compared Hardware
- G.SKILL Ripjaws F3-12800CL7D-8GBRH 2x4GB @ DDR3-1600 7-8-7-24 1T (Stock frequency @ stock latencies)
- G.SKILL Pi Series F3-17600CL7D-4GBPIS 2x2GB @ DDR3-2000 7-10-10-28 1T (Downclocked 200MHz @ stock latencies)
- Patriot Viper II Sector 5 PC3-12800 2x2GB @ DDR3-1600 8-8-8-24 1T (Stock frequency @ stock latencies)
- OCZ Platinum XTE PC3-16000 2x2GB @ DDR3-2000 9-9-9-24 1T (Stock frequency @ stock latencies)
Page Index
1. Introduction and Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Installation, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 CPU
4. Benchmark: AIDA64 FPU
5. Benchmark: AIDA64 Memory
6. Benchmark: PCMark Vantage
7. Benchmark: 3DMark 11
8. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 7.0
9. Benchmark: SuperPI 1M, Cinebench R11.5
10. Overclocking Results and Conclusion
