PQI's PQI24200-1GDB DDR2 Turbo Memory Kit
Compatibility and HH Test System
Compatibility Testing: One of the first things we like to do with a new set of memory is install it in a series of motherboards to give us some idea of compatibility. For this, we installed the PQI24200-1024GDB into three of the most recent motherboards we've reviewed, an ASUS P5GDC-V Deluxe I915G, an MSI I915P Neo2 Platinum and a Foxconn 925XE7AA-8EKRS2 I925XE. In each case, the system worked flawlessly with the PQI24200 modules, and we did not experience any odd behavior whatsoever.
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When we installed the memory modules into our Foxconn test board, when we set the memory timings by SPD in the BIOS, the system defaulted to a 4-4-4-12 configuration. So we loaded the latest version of CPU-Z to poll the SPD data and discovered that the SPD was not programmed as we would have expected. The lowest timings we found were for 3-3-3-9 at 200MHZ (DDR400) and 266MHz (DDR533) was programmed for 5-4-4-12. Nonetheless, these modules are rated for 3-3-3-8 at 533MHz DDR, so in our SPD tests, we manually set the timings to match the ratings on the label.
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How we configured our test systems: When configuring our test systems for this review, the first thing we did was enter the system BIOS and set each board to their "Optimized" or "High-Performance Defaults". The hard drives were then formatted, and Windows XP Professional (SP2) was installed. When the installation was complete, we hit the Windows Update site and downloaded all of the available updates, with the exception of the ones related to Windows Messenger. Then, we installed all of the necessary drivers, and removed Windows Messenger from the system altogether. Auto-Updating and System Restore were also disabled, and we setup a 768MB permanent page file on the same partition as the Windows installation. Lastly, we set Windows XP's Visual Effects to "best performance", installed all of our benchmarking software, defragged the hard drives and ran all of the tests. Throughout all of our standard benchmarking, we had the memory voltage set to 1.9v. When overclocking, or experimenting with lower latencies, we set the memory voltage to 2.0v.
