OCZ Gold > Platinum?

C

cyberslag5k

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 29, 2004
Messages
277
I'm a little confused, here. Newegg has two 6GB kits of OCZ DDR3 memory, the gold and the platinum. The gold has timings of 8-8-8-24 and the platinum has timings of 7-7-7-24, but the gold costs more than the platinum after rebate, and they cost the same before the rebate. Why might this be?

Also, can anyone speak to which might be the better buy, beyond the specs? They've both got really great reivews, but the gold has slightly fewer negatives. Both, however, seem to require that you overclock them to the advertised speeds, which is a little disconcerting.

Right now, I'm leaning towards the platinum, it's cheaper and theoretically faster. Would anyone care to argue to the contrary?
 
I'll try to answer your questions one at a time.

1: To the best of my knowledge, they are very similar memory kits. But if the platinum is cheaper, then you should definitely get it. Lower timings at the same speed rating (I don't know if you're looking at DDR3 1333 or 1600, but it really doesn't matter too much). The main reason they could be different is because the number of hits Gold got right after the BC went up to 10%. I know the price jumped by a $30 overnight on the golds, even though the platnums didn't experience the same increase. Supply-Demand basically.

2: When you say "overclock" to get advertised speeds, you need to be careful. If the reviewers weren't listing their entire rig, it may not have been a problem with the memory (almost never is), and rather with their motherboard autoclocking it lower than the "advertised" speeds. This isn't too had to fix via the BIOS. So even though you are technically ocing, it's really just undoing what your motherboard "decided" was best.

3: Cheaper + Better = Win. No point to get the gold, and the heatspreaders look worse anyways.
 
I was gonna buy the Gold today. But when I went, they went from the $100-105 range they were to like $129. So, I relooked everything over, and decided that indeed the Platinum were the better deal.

If I have to relax the timings to get them to run, I still got the same as gold memory then for less money.

So, there's my thoughts.
 
One thing to keep in mind. The Platinum series also has a better warranty replacement situation as well. I don't remember exactly what it is, but it seems like if there's an issue with Platinum, OCZ does a no questions ask swap immediately. I've literally had a DDR400 platinum kit die four years after it was introduced and got a brand new kit in the mail after I e-mailed support.
 
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