With the release of Socket AM2, memory companies are anticipating a whole slew of people upgrading their PCs, so there are lots of new memory products vying for attention. Super Talent's T1000UX2G5 2GB kit doesn't appear to be deserving of your gaze, especially as it boots at lowly PC2-4300 speeds (533MHz), which, the company told us, is just to ensure that it works in all DDR2 boards. However, looks can be deceptive, because under the plain silver heatspreaders lurks PC2-8000 memory, and the modules are guaranteed to run at 1GHz (with a 250MHz FSB) at 5-5-5-15 latencies.
We tested the Super Talent in the same Foxconn board as used for the Corsair. At its stock settings of 533MHz the test PC was slightly slower in our video encoding test, scoring 1.08, compared to 1.12 for the Corsair. A score of 1.08 is the same as a Socket 939 board using the same model of CPU and PC3200 RAM, so it's certainly worth buying at least 667MHz DDR2 for AM2 boards.
However, once we'd manually set the speed of the Super Talent in the BIOS, the benchmark results perked up. The Super Talent was stable at 1GHz with our test CPU set to a 250MHz FSB, although it required a slight boost in voltage, to 2V. The Super Talent was also happy running at a 1T command rate at 1GHz, whereas the Corsair would only run at 2T.
However, with the voltage increased to 2.4V - the maximum our Foxconn board allows - and a fan to keep it cool, the Super Talent would run at 1.16GHz (with a CPU FSB of 290MHz), which is a higher overclock than that of the Corsair RAM.
CONCLUSION
The Super Talent memory might not look flash, nor does it support the latest bells and whistles, such as EPP, but it shouldn't be overlooked; for those not afraid of tinkering in the BIOS, it can provide some excellent returns.
Author: Alex Watson
Super Talent T1000UX2G5