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Patriot DDR400 2-2-2/DDR533 3-4-4: Performance AND Value

 by Wesley Fink on April 8, 2005 12:05 AM EST
23 Comments | Add A Comment
23 Comments

Patriot PC3200+XBLK

PDP Systems (www.pdpsys.com) and the Patriot brand will be a new name for some readers. However, Patriot memory has been a line at Fry's/Outpost in the past and it is also available at New Egg and other web resellers. PDP Systems was founded in California's Silicon Valley in 1985. They have manufactured memory products for the past 14 years and they are also a member of Jedec, which is the memory industry standards organization. PDP currently markets a full line of DDR and DDR2 memory products, flash memory, and ATI video cards. On a global basis, PDP has two distribution centers in California, a Mid-West sales office, a Hong Kong sales/purchasing office and a Taiwanese purchasing affiliate.

Patriot PC3200+XBLK is manufactured with Samsung TCCD memory chips on the preferred Brainpower PCB for this memory. You can identify the Brainpower PCB by looking at the back side of the memory. As you can see in the photo, there are just 8 small components in a row just above the gold connectors. Other boards for TCCD memory have many more components in this row.

PDP equips the memory with flame-red aluminum heatspreaders, so they will certainly stand out in your system. We tested a pair of 512MB DIMMs (1GB) in dual-channel mode, but Patriot also has a 512MB kit (2x256MB) available.

Patriot PC3200+XBLK Specifications

Recognizing the extremely wide performance range of TCCD memory, PDP rates the memory at both DDR400 2-2-2-5 and DDR533 3-4-4-8. According to Patriot, the memory is tested in production at both specifications to ensure consistent performance.

 Patriot PC3200+XLBK (DDR400/533) Memory Specifications
Number of DIMMs & Banks 2 DS
DIMM Size
Total Memory		 512 MB
Rated Timings 2-2-2-5 at DDR400
3-4-4-8 at DDR533
SPD (Auto) Timings 2-3-2-5
Rated Voltage 2.6V

The XBL designation apparently signifies "eXtended Bandwidth and Latency". In the case of Samsung TCCD on a Brainpower PCB, this is certainly an apt description.

With Intel's introduction last summer of the Intel 915/925X chipsets with support for DDR2 memory, the primary market for DDR memory has become the excellent AMD Athlon 64 platform. However, some 915 boards also support DDR, and the continuing Intel Socket 478 also supports DDR memory. For these reasons, Patriot PC3200+XBLK was only tested on the DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR Athlon 64 Socket 939 test bed. This is the test bed that we recently used in evaluating OCZ VX memory in OCZ VX Revisited: DDR Updates on DFI nForce4.

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  • Reapsy00 - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link

    I just got this ram for my nforce2 system :D

  • Auric - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link

    Article seems to imply these are new but they have been available since last Autumn. Also, they are tested at five performance ratings, not two, which eliminates much of the messin' when overclocking the FSB/CPU.

    http://www.pdpsys.com/products/PDC1G512G3200+XBLK....

  • chennhui - Sunday, April 10, 2005 - link

    Dear Wesley Fink, May I know the memory timing used for PDP at highest performance 315, i.e. tRFC, tRRD, tWR,tWTR, tRTW, tREF, DQS, Drive strenght ect. If it is set to Auto, could you please read the value with Athlon64 Tweaker? :-) Does 315MHz 1:1 passed memtest test 8 and prime95 stress test? This is because I am running PDP stable at 289MHz, 3.0-4-4-10 Thanks.

  • KayKay - Friday, April 8, 2005 - link

    Any idea if this product is sold in Canada? I really like the balance of value and performance.

  • Wesley Fink - Friday, April 8, 2005 - link

    #16 - It is XBLK as you found, and the article has been updated. My tests for dyslexia are next week :-)

  • ozzimark - Friday, April 8, 2005 - link

    It brought a tear to my eye that you guys have already gotten the Everest benchmarks worked into the review. :)
    though, out of curiosity, do you plan to go back with the ram you tested previously on the dfi and add the everest scores to them? i'm sure it'll take up quite a bit of time though :/

  • sonicDivx - Friday, April 8, 2005 - link

    XBLK is what it is.

    I currently use it an hit the following stable.

    MBD: MSI NEO2
    Memory: 280 2.5-3-4-7 2.8v 1:1 ratio

    Wish had the DFI board I think with 2.9 I could hit 290. I have hit 282 with 2.5-4-4 2.85v but that is really the limit. with my NEO2.

    Its nice memory, when I purchased had gotten it for 186 :)

  • wildguy2k - Friday, April 8, 2005 - link

    Dunno if there are 2 different kinds, but throughout the article, you refer to it as XLBK, & the only results I can find price-wise are for XBLK. FYI.

  • Wesley Fink - Friday, April 8, 2005 - link

    #9 - The unique appearance of the back of the Brainpower PCB is much clearer in the p.2 photo in our Corsair PC4400 review at http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=231...

    OR you can direct link the Corsair Brainpower photo at http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/memory/ddr/cor...

  • Wesley Fink - Friday, April 8, 2005 - link

    #11 - It should read "Memory Read performance increased about 29% with this 50% speed increase, while Memory Write performance improved by just 17%."

    The review has been corrected.

    #13 - It depends on which Kingston you are talking about. We include two Kingston Value Ram products in next week's Value RAM Roundup.
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