X-bit labs

DDR500 Memory Roundup: Corsair, GeiL, Kingston, SimpleTech and Transcend (page 7)

Category: Memory

by Kirill "ALT-F13" Balalin

[ 04/09/2004 | 01:10 PM ]

SimpleTech Nitro PC4000

SimpleTech, an American memory manufacturer, is mostly involved into flash-cards and readers production, but pays some attention to PC memory, too. Their new Nitro series includes DDR500 modules and we’ve got two kits for our tests.

2x512Mb kit SimpleTech Nitro PC4000 SNX4000C3K/1Gb
2x256Mb kit SimpleTech Nitro PC4000 SNX4000C3K/512Mb

The Nitro series received our praises for the stylish package and overall ideology: the box is an irregular-shaped “cover” you can put down vertically. A bright yellow-black inset of hard paper, all in Nitro logos and hazard warnings, is visible through the plastic. The text on the backside is well-worded making you know why you need such modules at all. They list specifications, but never mention timings. On the face side, there’s the installation instruction and the warranty notice. The modules are additionally sealed into transparent plastic boxes.

The product is pleasing to the eye with its orange aluminum heat-spreaders and the biohazard logo in the center – that’s the way the Coolest Memory on Earth should look like. You subconsciously wait for an extreme effect from installing such modules into your computer. Our respects go to the marketing men from SimpleTech for the positive emotions during our tests. :)

The chips under the heatsinks are marked as SimpleTech. Of course, this is a remarking, but we couldn’t find out what chips the Americans use for their modules. Looks like this is something really good. I may venture a supposition that the chips come from Infineon, a long-time partner of SimpleTech, but that’s only my guess. The PCB is made of bright-red textolite, thus complementing the gamut of the heatsinks.

Anyway, the looks matters less than overclocking potential for us and we were glad to see that Nitro memory had no problems with it: 272 (DDR544) MHz for 2x256MB modules and 2MHz less for the half-gigabyte sticks. That’s a very good result, only surpassed by the GeIL DDR533 and the paranormal Transcend. At 3.3V Vdimm, SimpleTech’s Nitro memory becomes the absolute winner with a result of 292MHz and 290MHz (DDR584 and DDR580), respectively.

I would also like to mention that SimpleTech’s Nitro PC4000 modules allowed us to score the world’s record result in PCMark 2002 Memory Benchmark – 18743.