Test Rig & Configuration

MVKTech once again is using its aging but still famous ASUS P4P800 Deluxe test rig for this part of the review. This is actually one of the best proofed systems with excellent support for DDR memory. Some of you know the specifications and know them by heart, for those who don't; here is what we are using to test these modules.

• Intel Pentium 4 (Prescott) 3.0GHz CPU
• ASUS P4P800 Deluxe Mainboard
• Crucial Ballistix 2x 512MB Dual Channel Memory
• PNY Verto 6800 GT (NV40) 256MB AGP
• 1x Maxtor Diamond Max 9 200GB IDE HDD (UDMA133)
• Plextor PX-130A DVD-ROM Drive
• Zalman ZM460-APS (460W) Power Supply
• Cooler Master ATC-200C Case

The ASUS mainboard is based around the Intel 865PE chipset that supports officially an FSB of 800/533/400MHz. Of course ASUS is known to be a leader when it comes in overclocking and supporting more extra features out of the box. We will power the i865PE chipset with the Crucial Ballistix DDR500 memory sticks. These 184-pin DDR500 modules will run at amazing speeds in any platform you are computing with.

There it is the lovely Crucial Ballistix DDR500 dual channel kit installed and ready to be used. The ram sticks just shine in our test rig and do fit nicely with the color scheme or our system. I truly like the look and feel of the Ballistix PC-4000 kit and have only good words for it and high hopes on the performance.

Here we see the Crucial Ballistix DDR500 1GB Dual Channel from another angle. With the all the power cables it's hard to get a good angle on the ram, but I think you get the picture, no? Well I guess its time now to fire up the benchmark applications and move into some feedback and testing...

CPU-Z 1.32

Like usual we will fire up the general purpose freeware applications we enjoy using and CPU-Z is one of them. First off this is how we configured the system. We started out with a completely default system running at a HTT of 200MHz. Totally default voltage, with memory timing's set to automatic in the system BIOS. Let's pull some stats and see what we got...

When our system has started we load up CPU-Z and get the following detailed information. The initial screen will take us through the processor details of our system. Our central processing unit is an Intel P4 (Prescott) Socket 478 which is running at 3.0GHz featuring 1024KB cache.

The memory is reported as having a timing of 2.5-3-3-8 on our Intel 865PE based motherboard with the BIOS memory configuration set to Auto. This means the system determines the correct timings based upon the programmable table built into each module, allowing the system to adjust for optimum performance. Now that we have those details lets do a default test and see what we get...