New DDR Highs: Shikatronics, OCZ, and the Fastest Memory Yet

Final Words

OCZ and Shikatronics have produced the fastest memory that we have yet tested at AnandTech. The latest Hynix B chips used in both memories are incredibly fast, and both memories are performing very close to the DDR600 threshold. Across the board, the performance of the two new DDR550 memories is equivalent, and both outperform the earlier DDR550 memory, which we reviewed at Anandtech.

We have come to expect OCZ to perform at or near the top of our memory review tests, but the fact that ShikaXRAM is also performing at the top of our review charts says worlds about the quality of the new Shikatronics memory. While ShikaXRAM is a new name to many in the US market, based on the performance of the PC4400, Shikatronics is a company producing very competitive Enthusiast memory products. We cannot draw a conclusion with just one product, but we are certainly impressed with what we found in quality and performance with the ShikaXRAM PC4400.

If you want the fastest DDR memory that you can buy, then either ShikaXRAM PC4400 or OCZ PC4400 EL Gold will fit the bill. The top DDR performance is a moving target, and both these new memories based on the latest Hynix B chips raised the bar a bit higher. For those of you who will fret that the timings for DDR580 performance are 3-4-4-7, we would point out that DDR2 requires even slower 4-4-4 timings. The additional latencies of DDR2 at the present time also cause DDR2 at 533 speed to perform about the same as fast DDR at DDR433. The 6400 Standard (buffered) Sandra 2004 memory bandwidth that we achieved at DDR580 is the highest result we have seen so far on our Intel test bed, as is the 3750 unbuffered memory bandwidth.

We have looked at the question of which is best - slower memory at fast timings or fast memory at slower timings - in many past reviews. We leave that argument to those reviews. 1:1 memory performance is always a bit faster than asynchronous operation due to latency differences. Also, we know of no fast CAS 2 or CAS 2.5 memory that can even approach DDR580 timings. In the end, these results are the highest that we have achieved with any memory we have tested. This, of course, comes with a price, since there are very few motherboards available that can run at DDR580, and only a very few CPU combinations that can achieve these kinds of overclocks. However, if your system can do it and top speed is the goal of your overclocking, you can't do better than the new ShikaXRAM and OCZ PC4400 memory.

Hynix memory chips have carried a very high tariff in the US, and this might give a pricing advantage to Shikatronics, which is located in Canada. However, we could not find ShikaXRAM PC4400 available for sale in the US market. This means that it is much easier to find OCZ PC4400EL Gold for sale at vendors in the US. However, Shikatronics does sell directly on their website, and you can request pricing information on their website. Whichever memory you buy, we do not think you will be disappointed in the high-speed performance.