Memory is one of the key parts to any setup and it's quite important if you want that top-notch performance. Not enough – and our system slows to a crawl; but what if you have too much? Well, modern computers taught us never to say too much, and we tend to often whine about something that runs too slowly, it's not powerful enough, etc. 64bit OS users will be glad to hear that OCZ is offering a memory kit that packs no less than 8GB of fast and quality memory.  We had a chance to try it out for ourselves, and today we’ll show you how it did. We usually experience problems when using 4 memory modules, but OCZ’s memory worked nicely and even made overclocking a breeze.



Our testing quad kit called “OCZ2P8008GQ” is made up of four memory modules, packing 2GB each, and they’re pre-tested and wrapped in an attractive little cardboard box. OCZ used the existing plastic wrap for dual-channel memory and there are two in this box, simply called OCZ x 4.



The memory’s full name is OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 / 800 MHz / Platinum Edition / 8GB Quad Kit (4x2GB). It runs at 800MHz, but it has some nice timings for a memory of this capacity; 5-4-4-18. We tested it at 2.0V, which is less than the specified 2.1V. OCZ allows EVP (Extended Voltage Protection) up to 2.2V, but we didn’t need the higher voltages during our overclocking sessions. We easily increased the clocks to 1040MHz and 5-5-5-18 timings, using just 2.1V. We didn’t play with overclocking but higher voltages could probably squeeze some more juice out of OCZ’s performance memory modules. We wanted to see whether the memory modules run stable, but didn’t have to since OCZ tested these for us (hand tested).



8GB quad kit modules feature well-known Platinum Mirrored XTC Heatspreaders that’ll help in cooling this memory down when it’s overclocked.



We had enough Legos to make a big letter Z, and you all know what it means.




Testbed:

Motherboard: EVGA 780i SLI (Provided by EVGA)

Processor:
Intel Core 2 QX9770, 4x 3.2GHz   (Provided by Intel)

Memory:
OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 / 800 MHz / Platinum Edition / 8GB Quad Kit (4x2GB)

Graphic Card:
XFX Geforce 9800 GX2 (SLI) (Provided by XFX)

PSU: CoolerMaster Real Power M 1000 (Provided by CoolerMaster)

Hard disk:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB SATA (Provided by Seagate)

CPU-Cooler:

CoolerMaster Hyper 212 (Provided by CoolerMaster)

Case:
CoolerMaster Cosmos S (Provided by CoolerMaster)



Results:



Although we increased the speed at the expense of timings, the memory scored better. OCZ 8GB kit reacted well to overclocking and refused to be intimidated by the fact that 4 modules can sometimes run unstable – it ran perfectly.



Just like in previous test, overclocking yielded better results in Everest Latency test. Still, it was expected since bandwidth results are closely related to latencies.




We tried playing Crysis and it looks as if our memory provided our 2 x 9800 GX2 SLI setup with some additional muscle, so we got some significant frame rate increase.



3DMark Vantage also profited from faster memory, but default speeds of 800MHz were also good.



WinRAR test (compression and decompression) significantly benefited from overclocking.



Conclusion

This is not the first time we’ve tested 8GB of memory, but this time we’ve seen that you can sometimes actually benefit from this amount. Of course, the quality of your memory counts, and in our case OCZ tried hard to provide the enthusiasts with memory that is good, fast, but still overclocking friendly.

Since DDR2 prices are going down, 8GB of memory is so cheap that it’s a shame not to buy an 8GB kit, but beware – in order to use it you’ll require a 64 bit operative system. The problem we encountered, though, is the apparent lack of 64-bit apps, notably those that can put 8GB or more to some, if any, use.

OCZ still aims at enthusiasts, so this 8GB memory kit is a nice surprise. The memory we tested ran fast and stable, and it’s widely available at €145. If you ever thought about putting all your memory slots to use, we recommend OCZ’s 8GB of OCZ2P8008GQ Platinum memory.