Overclocker Cafe - Ultra 1024mb PC3200 XL Memory Review

Ultra Products PC3200 XL 1gb Memory Kit

Manufacturer: Ultra Products
Supplied by: Ultra Products
Estimated Price: $250

by Dean Barker (3/09/2005)

Introduction

Ultra Products originally made their mark in the hardware game with the X-Connect power supplies that were well made and uniquely functional. Since that time, they have expanded their offering into many other areas; one of these being memory. The competition in memory manufacturing circles is tight and hard fought. It is with this in mind, I initially had some skepticism on a 'new comer' coming into the memory ring and being able to hold their own. Today, we have some of Ultra's low latency (2-2-2-5) RAM on deck to see if Ultra did their homework or is this just a pretty package. Our thanks go out to the good people at Ultra Products for making this review possible.

Several low latency PC3200 (DDR400) memory kits are currently available running memory timings of 2-2-2-5. The tighter timings give you increased performance over standard memory at this same speed. The bonus of these memory kits is that as you relax the timings you are able to increase the overclocking ceiling of the RAM. Ultra goes so far with this as to have a table with speed and overclocks at selected timings and voltages up on their web site.

Speed	Memory Timings	Voltage
PC3200 (400MHz)	2-2-2-5-1T	2.6-2.7v
PC3500 (436MHz)	2-3-3-6-1T	2.6-2.7v
PC3700 (466MHz)	2-3-3-6-1T	2.7-2.8v
PC4000 (500MHz)	2.5-3-3-7-1T	2.75-2.85v
PC4200 (533MHZ)	3-4-4-8-1T	2.85-2.95v

Herein lies one of the major selling points of low latency memory. At DDR400 levels you have some very tight timings available to boost performance while also having the ceiling to overclock higher than most systems will even allow if you so choose by loosening things up. In the past, we have reviewed the Corsair TwinX 1024-3200XL Pro and the Mushkin PC3200 LII V2 Enhanced Memory both offering low latency and ceilings of over 250MHz on the bus with making for DDR500 speeds with loose timings. Ultra is taking this one step further by saying their RAM can operate at PC4200 (DDR533.) That's a bold statement that we very much intend on verifying.