Tip: OCZ Animal DDR3-1333; 2000 MHz capable RAM

For testing our Animal kit, we used an Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition running 3.2 GHz with Turbo mode enabled, 3x2 GB OCZ Animal DDR3-1333 7-7-7, an EVGA Classified E760 motherboard, a 300 GB Western Digital Velociraptor, an XFX Radeon HD 4890 Vanilla, a Silverstone Zeus 1200 Watt power supply, and Microsoft Windows 7 RC1 x64. For comparative testing we also installed a 3x2 GB Kingston HyperX T1 and a 3x 2 GB Corsair Dominator GT kit using the exact same configuration.

Not only looking into retail performance of the memory kit, we also bumped up the X58 memory divider and ran our tests at higher speeds than 1333 MHz. Sadly, the OCZ Animal is not fitted with XMP profiles, so for our top speed run the base clock was raised to 143, the multiplier lowered to 23 and Turbo mode was disabled – keeping CPU speed as close to the stock level as possible, thus making memory performance more evident.

Benchmarking the Animal kit using SiSoft Sandra 2009 Pro Business SP4, we used the following settings, which we believe are pretty much guaranteed to run on any Animal kit out there:

• 1333 MHz, 7-7-7-24, 1T, 1.52 DRAM voltage, 1.35 CPU VTT
• 1600 MHz, 8-8-8-24, 1T, 1.60 DRAM voltage, 1.35 CPU VTT
• 1866 MHz, 9-9-9-24, 2T, 1.65 DRAM voltage, 1.35 CPU VTT
• 2000 MHz, 9-9-9-24, 2T, 1.66 DRAM voltage, 1.40 CPU VTT (*denotes BCLK overclocking)

Without further ado, let's have a look at our benchmark results.



Using the higher memory divider and running the kit at 1866 MHz, we observe some ass-whooping numbers from the OCZ Animal almost being on par with the performance of a Kingston HyperX T1 kit. Corsair Dominator GT is notably faster still, but this is nevertheless impressive bandwidth for an overclocked 1333 MHz DDR3 kit.

Should the need for overclocking arrive, you will be able to run 2 GHz on the OCZ Animal - leaving even the Corsair Dominator GT's behind. Not bad for a memory kit at more than half that price range.



Similarly, the overall system cache and memory bandwidth as indicated above also gets a boost. While sitting in at identical speed and timings, the relative difference of the Kingston versus the OCZ triple-channel kit is most likely explained by tighter sub-timings for Kingston’s HyperX.



Confirming the performance abilities, Everest Ultimate interestingly shows an almost equal index between running 1600 MHz and 1866 MHz. Just like in SiSoft Sandra, although now more apparent, OCZ Animal has moved up a notch and is extremely close to Kingston's numbers.