Verdict: The ultimate performance DDR2 for Athlon 64 systems

The G.Skill F2-8500PHU2-2GBHZ has the dubious distinction of being the second most expensive kit in this test.

As this G.Skill kit is rated as PC2-8500, it's guaranteed to run at up to 1,066MHz. At first we thought that G.Skill had misprinted the latency timings on the box of the F2-8500PHU2-2GBHZ, as it claims that it can run at 4 - 4 - 4 - 5 at 2.4V. This seemed to be wrong - generally speaking, the higher the frequency then the higher the latency timings.

Once we had recovered from the initial shock of the F2-8500PHU2-2GBHZ's incredible latency timings and high frequency, we weren't at all surprised by how fast it was; it claimed first place in the SuperPI 32M test in both the Core 2 and Athlon 64 test rigs.

Even more impressively, the F2-8500PHU2-2GBHZ overclocked stably to 1.12GHz at its default latency timings with 2.45V set in the BIOS, and to 1.18GHz at the same voltage when we dropped the timings to 6 - 6 - 6 - 18. As 2.45V is the maximum that our test board supplies, the F2-8500PHU2-2GBHZ could probably be overclocked even higher if more voltage was available.

The F2-8500PHU2-2GBHZ is very overclockable, but it only really shines in Athlon 64 PCs, as its low latency timings provide little extra performance in Core 2 systems.

• Cases - 21st November 2008
• Motherboards - 24th October 2008
• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
• Headphones - 12th September 2008
• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008

• Shuttle XPC SX48P2 Deluxe - Desktop PCs
• SilverStone Raven - Peripherals
• Raptor Gaming M3 Platinum - Peripherals
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 - Processors
• ATI Radeon HD 4670 - Graphics cards
• DFI Lanparty JR P45-T2RS - Motherboards
• BFG GeForce GTX 260 OCX MaxCore - Graphics cards