Gaming with Doom3

     Using the hottest game out right now, I'll run a few more benchmarks with ratios of 1:1 200/200, 2:3 200/300, 2:3 220/330, and 3:4 250/333.

     Unfortunately, I could not keep the system stable through a benchmark at 250/333 (3.5GHz). Regardless, going through the different ratios and memory settings did little to improve Doom3's performance. The only thing that seems to help Doom3 is video card settings or simply a more powerful video card.

Conclusion

     I don't know what impresses me more, the Ballistix memory or the ABIT AA8 DuraMAX motherboard. Together they make one heck of a team! Being that this is my first DDR2 review, I really don't have much to go on as far as comparison except for what I've read about on other sites. The biggest complaint that I hear is DDR2 is slow. Well, I just don't see that in Crucial's Ballistix memory, especially when paired up with the AA8 motherboard. Thanks to the motherboard, we can squeeze every last bit of performance out of the PC2-5300. Because of the good motherboard we have, we can also see that this PC2-5300 probably will not overclock past it's rating of 667MHz DDR. Not with our current CPU anyway. However, we reached new levels of greatness while overclocking the CPU and memory scores are outstanding! In time I expect memory scores to get even higher as companies release even better DDR2 with tighter memory timings, but for now, Crucial's Ballistix is one of your few choices in performance DDR2. Club Overclocker Recommended!