OCZ Reaper 2GB Kit PC2-8500 1066Mhz OCZ2RPR1066A2GK CrossFire Certified Ram

Every time I think of OCZ Reaper ram I get the Blue Oyster Cult song ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ stuck in my head, why I don’t know… but I hope it’s stuck in yours now… Anyway, if you haven’t guessed, today up on the review block is a 2 Gig kit of OCZ PC2-8500 Reaper HPC Edition CrossFire Certified ram, not only does this stuff look really cool, it performs very well also, so read on to check it out…

OCZ Reaper 2GB Kit PC2-8500 1066Mhz OCZ2RPR1066A2GK CrossFire Certified Ram

Reviewed by: Kristofer Brozio AkA Dracos

Sponsor: OCZ Technology

Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:

OCZ DDR2 PC2-8500 / 1066 MHz / CrossFire Certified / Reaper HPC Edition / Dual Channel

Tested and qualified under AMD’s renowned certification program, the PC2-8500 CrossFire series not only meets a high standard of quality, but guarantees superior compatibly with CrossFire technology. Combined with AMD’s esteemed CrossFire technology, the OCZ PC2-8500 certified series unleashes the performance potential of the entire platform.

AMD enthusiasts and system builders will love the customized look of the new Reaper kits; these modules are cooled with an exclusive AMD special Reaper HPC (Heat Pipe Conduit) heatspreader displaying AMD’s “CrossFire Certified” emblem. These unique DDR2-1066 modules feature the patent-pending Reaper HPC (Heat Pipe Conduit) heatspreader which is engineered to deliver superior silent heat dissipation over traditional heatspreaders. The Reaper HPC is an innovative cooling solution developed by OCZ to effectively minimize heat produced by high-speed memory. As heat rises into the thermo-conductive copper heat pipe conduit, it is dissipated through a compact aluminum fin array. By strategically guiding performance-robbing heat away from key memory components, the unique Reaper HPC design maximizes passive cooling to improve longevity and stability of the modules.

The first certified Reaper HPC memory product available will be 2GB (2x1024MB) dual channel kits optimized for the latest CrossFire platforms. Rated to run with 5-5-5 timings, these modules offer gamers an additional performance edge over conventional DDR2-1066 memory. The CrossFire Certified Reaper 2GB kit is the supreme solution for gamers seeking the advantages of increased reliability and bandwidth management from their memory. Each OCZ PC2-8500 CrossFire Reaper module is backed by an industry leading OCZ Lifetime Warranty and technical support for unparalleled peace of mind.

Specs:

-1066MHz DDR2

-CL 5-5-5-15 (CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS)

-Available in 2GB (2X1024) dual channel optimized kit

-Unbuffered

-Lifetime Warranty

-2.3 Volts

-240 Pin DIMM

Special Features: 

CrossFire Certified

Patent-pending Reaper HPC Heatsink*

2.35V EVP – OCZ’s unique Extended Voltage Protection feature allows PC2-8500 modules to handle voltages up to 2.35V and still be covered by our Lifetime Warranty.

Part Numbers: 

2GB (2X1024) D/C Kit PN – OCZ2RPR1066A2GK

A Better Look at Things

:

The OCZ Reaper Ram comes in a cool package that really shows off the ram, while the back goes on the describe exactly what Reaper HPC is and what it can do for you.

   

As we already know this ram is CrossFire Certified, but if there was any doubt there are large badges stating it right on the ram heatspreaders as well.

The other side of the ram just has the identifying stickers to let you know what the ram is, speed, timings, part number, and capacities.

   

If you haven’t figured it out yet, HPC means Heat Pipe Conduit, each stick of Reaper ram has, essentially a mini heatpipe cooling system built right in to keep your ram running nice and cool under the heaviest loads. The copper heatpipes are connected to the heatspreaders and then run up to a heatsink that encircles the hetapipe itself allowing for greater heat dissipation.

   

The OCZ Reaper ram is some of the most interesting ram I have seen to date, although I can’t quite figure out where they got the Reaper name from. I was sort of expecting something that resembles a sickle for the HPC, but not really, on the other hand though it does make a great handle for installing and un-installing the ram (just kidding there…).

Installation, Testing and Comparison

Ok, on to the fun and interesting part, or maybe boring part… lots of information and cool looking graphs about how this ram performs.

First up here’s the basic specs of my test setup:

Intel Core2Duo 6420 CPU

ECS NF650i SLIT-a Motherboard (review here)

2x BFG 7900GT OC video cards in SLI for testing

   

Yep, there’s no CrossFire setup here… I know you’re thinking but wait, isn’t this CrossFire certified ram? Well yes it is, but I don’t have a CrossFire system for testing, so I’m treating this as a standard ram review. I do have a CrossFire enabled board though, just one video card, and I ran all the same tests and found pretty much the same results using CrossFire Certified Ram and not using it. So I thought it would be much more fun to run the tests and show the results using an SLI system.

For my comparisons I put the Reaper up against two of Crucial’s finest, 2 gigs of Ballistix Tracer PC2-8500 (5-5-5-15) and 10th Anniversary PC2-5300 (5-3-3-15) (which is really just Ballistix)

First up is everyones favorite game: Doom 3

(All gaming tests where run using Hardware OC Benchmark programs, two runs and averaged out)

Doom 3

Res: 1280×1024

Demo: HOCdemo

Quality: Ultra

Aspect ratio: 4:3

Antialiasing 16x

Anisotropic filtering 16x

Obviously higher frame rates are better, and we see actually the Crucial PC2-5300 takes the lead by an average of 2 FPS, which really isn’t much…

Next up we have an old stand by favorite, Far Cry, again using Hardware OC Benchmark system, with two runs and averaged out.

Far Cry

Res: 1280×1024

Demo: Pier

Pixel Shader: default

Antialiasing: 8x

Anisotropic Filtering: 16x

HDR: level 7

Here we find that the OCZ Reaper actually edges ahead just a tiny bit, but nothing to get excited about..

Last game up for testing is Prey, same here again, using HOC benchmark, ran twice.

Prey

Res: 1280×1024

Demo: Hwzone

Shader Detail: Highest

Aspect ratio: 4:3

Antialiasing: 4x

Anisotropic Filtering: 16X

Here we see the Ballistix and the Reaper are the same in performance, with the Crucial 10th falling a few frames behind.

Installation, Testing and Comparison Continued:

Next up we have a few tests using SiSoft Sandra XI. Here I not only tested the ram, but the ram and the CPU together to see if there is any performance difference.

First up is:

SiSoft Sandra Cache and Memory test

Benchmark the processors’ caches and memory access (transfer speed).

Combined Index: is a composite figure representing the overall performance rating of the entire Cache-Memory performance in terms of MB/s. The value is the logarithmic average of all the results for the entire address space. (Higher is better, i.e. better performance)

Speed Factor: is a figure representing the speed differential between the CPU’s cache and memory. The value is the ratio of the fastest cache (i.e. L1) bandwidth to the main memory bandwidth. (Lower is better, i.e. the memory is not very much slower than CPU’s cache)

Here we can see the Ballistix edges a bit ahead overall, but not enough to be negligible.

Next up we have:

CPU Arithmetic Benchmark

Benchmarks the ALU and FPU processor units. Shows how your processors handle arithmetic and floating point instructions.

Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

The results show that all pairs of ram are pretty evenly matched.

Next we have:

Memory Bandwidth Benchmark

Benchmarks the memory bandwidth of your computer.

Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Actually we see the Reaper falls a bit behind here in the Memory Bandwidth benchmark…

Now we have the Memory Latency Benchmark.

Benchmark the latency (response time) of processors’ caches and memory

The latency of caches is measured in processor clocks (i.e. how many clocks it takes for the data to be ready) as it is dependent on the processor clock speed.

The latency of memory is measured in nanoseconds as it is typically independent on processor clock speed.

Results Interpretation : Lower index values are better.

We can see at the same timings and speed of the Ballistix the OCZ Reaper pulls a few points ahead in both parts of the test.

Installation, Testing and Comparison Continued:

and we have more tests for you…

I have two more tests from SiSoft Sandra XI for you and then two others as well.

So the next one up from SiSoft Sandra would be:

Multi-Core Efficiency

Benchmark the multi-core efficiency of the processors. Shows how efficient the processor cores and their inter-connects are in comparison to other types to other typical processors.

The ability of the cores to process data blocks and pass them to another core for processing (producer-consumer paradigm) of different sizes and different chain sizes is measured. The efficiency of the inter-connect between cores is thus benchmarked; however, the number of cores (and processors) also counts as more data buffers can be processed simultaneously (aka “in flight”).

True multi-core processors that have shared L2/L3 caches will thus perform much better than cores that have separate caches and are connected by the traditional FSB.

Inter-Core Bandwidth :Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Inter-Core Latency :Results Interpretation : Lower index values are better.

You might be wondering why I threw a couple of these tests in here, like this one, well I wanted to see just if the ram has effects on the CPU itself and if any or not…

We can see here the the Reaper does seem to have a beneficial effect on my Intel C2D 6420 in regards to Bandwidth with the Speed Factor remaining the same.

Last test from SiSoft Sandra is:

Processor Multi-Media

Benchmark the (W)MMX, SSE/2/3/4 processor units. Shows how your processors handle multi-media instructions and data in comparison to other typical processors.

Such operations are used by more specialized software, e.g. image manipulation, video decoders/encoders, games.

Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Here we can see there is no clear winner overall..

The next test is Super Pi calculated to 1 million places, of course lower score is better, meaning less time to calculate.

The Reaper pulls ahead here just a tiny bit, but nothing spectacular…

Last and final test for you is a real world test, video encoding using TMPGEnc to to see how long it takes to encode or re-encode a video file. The file is an AVI file that is being converted to MPG. It is 3 minutes and 48 seconds long, with 5720 frames and is 70.5 MB in size.

No difference at all as we can see by the times…

What have all these tests told us? Well they’ve told us that the OCZ Reaper can easily hold it’s own doing anything you need it to do.

Did we find out if it’s any better for your system than other brands? Not really… At least in my SLI enabled system we didn’t see much of a difference at all… and in my CrossFire enabled system I had pretty much the same conclusions.

Is it good ram? I can say yes indeed it is, and yes I can recommend it as well to anyone, even if they’re not running a CrossFire system. It’s staying in my system now…

As for any Overclocking, sadly I couldn’t get the Reaper 2Gig Kit over 1150Mhz on either of my systems, but still that is hitting the PC2-9200 mark, and I know my P4X system overclocks easily, so it wasn’t the CPU limiting my overclock. No matter what I did, upping the voltage, loosening the timings it just wouldn’t go any higher and be stable. This isn’t to say that other people won’t have better luck than me, we all know it’s sort of the luck of the draw when getting stick of ram to overclock, some will OC higher than others. I’ve read other reviews where they have hit 1200Mhz easily with their OCZ Reaper…

Summary:

Well we all know that OCZ makes some great ram, and the Reaper PC2-8500 I reviewed here just goes to prove that point yet again, it not only looks great but performs admirably well.

It easily holds it’s own against the leading manufacturer of performance ram.

DragonSteelMods gives the OCZ Reaper 2Gb Kit PC2-8500 CrossFire Certified Ram a 5 out of 5 score and our Recommended Award as well.

Pros:

-Lifetime warranty

-Looks cool

-Fast, great performance overall

Cons:

-High voltage requirements

-Ram is large, HPC makes it very tall so it might not fit in all systems depending on layout and size of CPU cooler

review# 267