Centon Advance PC2-5400 DDR2 Memory

Overclocking & Final Thoughts

Overclocking

After running some standard benchmarks I wanted to run the memory in a variety of situations. First, using the standard 3:4 Divider and timings of 4-4-4-12 I wanted to see how far I could push Centon’s Advance PC5400. Starting with the stock voltage of 1.8V I was able to achieve a memory speed of 682MHZ. I then bumped the voltage to the max available on my motherboard, 2.2V (ASUS P5AD2-E Premium), loosened the memory timings to 5-5-5-15 and pushed on…..only my system refused to even boot, giving me the dreaded “System failed CPU test”. Evidently the Micron ICs didn’t care for the extra voltage. So, regardless of timings or voltage, the max overclock ended up being 682MHz. At this time I’m willing to blame my motherboard for the lack of overclockability, I will follow up on this in the forums after I get another board with better memory options.

Rich’s Final Thoughts:

In the end, Centon’s Advance PC5400 didn’t have the overclocking headroom of some memory available on the market, but performed very well none the less.

I found Centon’s PC5400 offering to be a very good memory solution, keeping pace with Kingston’s PC5400 entry in every benchmark, and needless to say, Kingston is by no means a slouch in the memory market. Though the samples I tested today didn’t have the headroom of some more familiar names when it came to overclocking, from a price to performance standpoint I feel Centon’s PC5400 should be a very good value.

Keep an eye on Centon Electronics, just because they are new to the enthusiast/gamer market does not mean they are inexperienced, in fact, with more than 10 yrs of making OEM memory they obviously know what they are doing. I am curious to see whether the quality and price of their memory causes other prominent companies to make adjustments in their prices, or whether Centon themselves adjusts their prices to match competitors. In the end, Centon might find themselves a comfortable niche catering to those of us who need performance, but are unable to afford Crucial Ballistix, Corsair XMS, or Kingston Hyper X memory.

Legit Bottom Line:

Depending on how Centon prices this DDR2 in comparison to other brands, this PC5400 Advance memory bears watching. Centon’s initial entry into the enthusiast/gamer market looks promising since they are using quality components that ensure high performance numbers. Keep an eye out as I’ve been told some low latency DDR2 memory is on the way from Centon.