A-DATA PC4000 DDR500

A-DATA PC 4000 is delivering what the manufacturer is advertising and even more than this. All of the tested 12 modules 256 MB A-Data PC 4000 passed Memtest-86 at 268 MHz in dual channel mode. The best 4 modules passed Memtest-86 at 277 MHz. Almost all modules could complete the Sandra memory bandwidth benchmark at 280 MHz in single mode. At 250 MHz the tested modules did not need more than 2.55 volts. From 270 MHz onward it was necessary though to gradually increase the voltage to 2.85 volt.

We have the feeling that some of the tested A-DATA PC 4000 modules would run even higher than 281 MHz. Above 13 x 280 MHz = 3640 MHz our aircooled P4 2600 became unstable and most probably the bottleneck for further advancements. But we would not be surprised to see this PC 4000 memory running at up to 300 MHz with “vapochilled” (review here) P4 2.4GHz or 2.6GHz MHz CPUs. Another point to consider is the voltage. Almost all 865/975 boards provide a maximum of only 2.8 or 2.85 DIMM voltage. With modifications to the circuitry it is in many cases possible to get 0.1 or 0.2 volt more and that might further help to push the maximum frequency headroom of this memory towards 300 MHz.

Given the price of around 65~70 USD in Asia for the 256 MB module and 140 USD for the 512 M module A-DATA PC 4000 offers an excellent cost vs performance ratio.