Test Setup

Performance

In the first test we evaluate how these modules do at their default settings, to establish a baseline performance value.
Next we tried how much further we could overclock at these default settings. Unfortunately only a mere 5 MHz overclock was possible.
The next two tests show how well the memory responds to different voltages. We tried 2.3V, 2.15V and 2.0V. The results of 525 MHz / 523 MHz / 520 MHz tell us that this memory really does need high voltage to be able to run at its advertised speeds. But it also tells us that it still can do well over 1000 MHz, even when running at 2.0V which almost every serious motherboard out there can deliver to the memory.
An interesting "feature" of the P965 chipset (no matter which memory) that I wanted to show you is that it changes some chipset timings around to be able to run stable at 400 FSB+. If you take a look at the results of the 7 x 416 vs. the 7 x 399 runs you can clearly see that even though the FSB is lower, the memory bandwidth is higher. The benchmark performance is not higher though, even if you take the CPU clock difference into account.
To see what this memory can do with relaxed timings, we set the timings to 6-6-6-18 which is pretty much the slowest setting the P965 offers. An amazing DDR2-1178 is now possible. This might be a useful setting when you are trying to max out a Conroe E6300, which requires insane high FSB frequencies if you get a good CPU. The lowest divider available in the chipset is 1:1, so FSB 589 is possible with this memory kit.
Other people may want to tighten the latencies some since they don't need such high FSBs. This is also possible with the PC2-8800. When running at 4-4-4-12 you can still get a nice 440 MHz memory speed.
When the timings are tightened even more, you still have 363 MHz at 3-2-2-4 which is the fastest setting available in the chipset. This is a useful setting for people with Extreme Edition CPUs that run at high multipliers.
For further comparison, the test "JEDEC DDR2-533" shows a generic DDR-2 module running at JEDEC standard timings.