DDR2 has become mainstream this year and the DDR2-8500 category is probably one of the most popular, providing a balanced mix of good performance and overclocking capabilities. The recent price drops have also made these memory modules very appealing for most users. In this review, we compare three PC2-8500 rated modules from Crucial, OCZ and GSkill, in order to find out which is the fastest, and how well they overclock, something that will interest enthusiast users.

The Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500 modules have previously been reviewed by us. You can read the full article here.

So we begin this review by taking a quick look at the GSkill F2-8500 modules.

- GSkill F2-8500CL5D-2GBHK

"G. SKILL", established in 1989 by enthusiasts, is a leading memory Module Manufacturer based in Taipei, Taiwan. This is the first time that we will test a G Skill product and we hope and expect to see very high performance.

- Main features

• Module Size: 2GB kit (1GBx2)
• PCB: 6 Layers PCB
• DIMM Type: UNBUFFERED
• Error Checking: NON-ECC
• Speed: 1066MHz DDR2 (PC2-8500)
• Voltage: 2.3~2.4 Volts
• Memory Timings: 5-5-5-15
• Warranty: Lifetime

- Retail package

G Skill provided us with a retail package of 2x1GB from the F2-8500CL5D-2GBHK series. The retail price for the package is around US$176 as found online at several stores. The retail package is rather unique, carefully packaged and aesthetically very good

There is also a sticker in the retail box:

The modules are carefully packaged in a plastic shell.

The modules come with heat-spreader and the G Skill. On one side, there is a label with the part number, timings and other information.

Under Windows and using Everest Ultimate Edition 2007, we can see a thorough rundown on the memory modules:

The SPD, as reported by CPU-Z, indicates only 533MHz with CL5:

Lastly, here are the settings for FSB and voltage. While we couldn't get low CL4 either at 500/533MHz in our setup, even with 2.40V, it maybe possible to achieve this with another motherboard and chipset (for example P965/P35). The highest memory frequency we got was 580MHz with 2.50V memory voltage.