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Dual Channel Memory Shootout
MDT48 writes "Ever wondered if that expensive low latency memory was worth the cash? These guys have rounded up almost every memory module out there and hammered them. Must have taken them ages, and takes almost as long to read, well worth the effort though."
The Winners
Never heard of them. But they sound reliable!
StrategyTalk.com, PC Game Forums
Most people don't even read the short articles!
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Anyone know if 4 512MB PC3200 DDR 400 chips is faster/slower than 2 1GB PC3200 DDR 400 chips?
I suppose asking for a cached copy of this article would be a bit too ironic, right?
GEIL Not only do they have GEIL placing well in the middle of the lineup both in price and performance, but I have noted that it offers the best of both worlds. It doesn't cost nearly as much as the high high end stuff, and while it doesn't perform *quite* as well, it's still better than the low end stuff. GEIL presents a good opporutinity to chose between Value and High End
Well since it is a 33 page read, how about the link to the end where the conclusions are.
Conclusion
The Winner
and for those too lazy to click
Conclusion
So there we have it, 18 different types of memory benchmarked to within an inch of their life and to prove what? Well, one thing we've proved is that while even value memory may offer sustained levels of high speed operation, when you want to make it to the scary end of the spectrum above 250MHz you generally need to pay the price premium associated with "enthusiast" modules. Cheaper stuff may get you close, but at the very high-end we're afraid you really do get what you pay for.
If you're happy to settle for fast rather than fastest, it seems that reputations and price tags count for little in this game. Good chips on a poorly designed PCB and poor chips on a great PCB will both leave you wanting. And even if you have the best and fastest memory on the planet you still need a motherboard that can do it justice.
Evaluating performance at more reasonable frequencies is slightly easier, but also slightly fuzzier. Some of the benchmark results varied so widely that it was hard to understand what was really going on, and with various tests favouring different attributes and the surprisingly similar stock performance from many of the modules on test, it was almost an exercise in identifying the "Top Dogs", the "Turkeys" and "The Rest".
We hope you enjoyed this roundup and gleaned at least some information from the effort that went into it. As we hope you've seen, or will see when you glance through the benchmark results, memory is a very complex subject and pinning it down in performance terms isn't as simple as you might imagine. We won't let that stop us trying though.
Finally we'll pick out some winners. Remember that for our purposes, overclocking is more a pleasant bonus than an essential feature, and though we have made allowance for overclocking performance it hasn't been given the same weight that it might have been given were we writing this roundup purely for enthusiasts.
Finally, benchmarks do a great job of highlighting strengths and weaknesses in products but it's important to keep things in perspective. Most of us would not notice any tangible performance differences between even the fastest and slowest modules on test here when run at the processor's default speed unless we were specifically looking for them. That's not to say that faster isn't better, it's just not as critical as some would have us believe.
The Winners
Value Editor's Choice - TwinMOS PC4000 CL2.5
Concerns over availability make us a little nervous about handing the value crown to TwinMOS, but we can't argue with the numbers and this is quite simply the fastest memory for the money that we had the pleasure of testing. We only hope the poor availability isn't due to production constraints and look forward to seeing more retailers pick up on what appears to be a very nice product.
Value Recommended - Buffalo PC3200 CL3
We may have had little experience with Buffalo before this roundup but both of the Buffalo modules we were sent acquitted themselves well in testing. For the most part, performance levels in the value group contenders were quite evenly matched but Buffalo did enough to scrape onto our leader board. A very impressive all-round showing earns Buffalo a well-deserved Recommended award.
High-End Editor's Choice - Corsair TwinX1024-3200XL Pro
Perhaps the toughest choice of all, we eventually opted for Corsair's 3200XL Pro for its shear arrogance. While far from cheap, it consistently set the standards for stock performance while flashing a knowing LED at the competition as it did so. For a change we see a product with a bite every bit as bad as its bark.
Hig
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
Their server could sure use some of that memory now...
This is for the crowd that puts neon lights in their PC. Not the people who buy ECC memory for their desktops.
Looking at the benchmarks, in most cases I would say..... no
(just in case someone has the urge to actually RTFA...)
they put everything into 33 darn pages so it can be mirrored easily...
PC4000 (DDR500) RAM and faster) is here, and it's a lot faster than anything they reviewed. Even if your CPU/Mobo don't support more than DDR200 or DDR333, you can get lower latency (i.e., 2-2-2-2 BIOS timing options will be usable at lower frequencies) and be ready for upgrades using faster RAM.
I just picked up two 512MB sticks of this amazing stuff to go with my AMD64 3200+ from, of all places, Circuit City (because it is only $129 each, cheaper even than newegg, which is usually a great deal for RAM and has amazing reseller ratings.) Though I just noticed there's a new $40 rebate on newegg's $299 price (for 1GB), making the net $259, or about the same as I paid at CC. Then again, I hate rebates.)
No shipping and insta-pick up at Circuit Shitty (though newegg is usally free for fedex saver), even with MA 5% sales tax it's a steal.
Sorry, I digress -- I'm full of gin, tonic, and Italian food. Back OT -- they got their best RAM up to 275MHz FSB (DDR550). The Kingston I got works stable up to 325MHZ (DDR650!!) and it's not much more (a few cents/MB) than the reviewed RAM.
Just thought I'd share all I recently discovered before someone runs out and buys the best of this review. I think it took so long to write all that review text and compile/plot the data that they missed the new goodies!
everything in moderation
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And if you would just like a short introduction to what the heck RAM speed means, check out this excellent Arstechnica.com article:
FSB and memory speeds
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The better the cas timing the better the ram... Also more sticks in the banks cases more latency... if you can do one stick 512 vs 2 256 it will give less sytem latency... I wonder what dual channel ram does to system latency... if there is more because 2 sticks have to be addressed...hmmm?
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So now that they tested all these brands and models, how consistent are the results? If I go to newegg and get the one that worked best for them, will the one I get work equally well? On a different board? With a different chipset?
Where's the mushkin at?
Does this seem like a pretty major omission to anyone else?
I'd rather buy the generic stuff and save the money for a better cpu or video card. better price performance ratio i think.
Always nice to have a personal verification on the products you purchase.
This about TwinMos from overclockers NZ:
"Up on closer inspection, we found out that the TwinMOS's PCB is made by Tripod Technology. I've been to the Tripod plant in Taiwan and was pleasantly surprised by their workers self-discipline and how organised the plant was."
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
"I know faster memory would help, but does it help that much when you follow the advice above?"
It matters MORE not less. When you have swapping or vm going on your bottlenecked by the harddrive. When everything is in ram your bottlenecked by the Ram.
That's why if you increase the memory in a linux or bsd system you tend to see a much more dramatic performance increase than a processor upgrade usually yields (unless it's a several generation jump, like from a p1 200 to a p4).
The processor is much faster than the memory, since you've eliminated the hdd as a bottleneck (and everything else, the memory has a direct channel to the cpu), every increase in memory speed = actual performance increase.
Did you even click the link?
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The only way you could be more offtopic is if it contained gay cowboys eating pudding!
These guys have rounded up almost every memory module out there and hammered them
and now they're being hammered....
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I have never been able to find a good explaination on PC memories. What are the timings, latencies, what are the numbers on their labels, etc... PC133 ? 4000 ? I put PCs together and usually stay with the recommanded motherboard manufacturer's recommendations but I'm curious for more.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
I had presumed that the frequency and timings absolutely dictated the bandwidth and latency etc. For example, with CL2.5 RAM you have to wait 2.5 cycles after strobing the CAS line to get your data, so doesn't that operation take exactly the same ammount of time on every stick of CL2.5 RAM? Isn't the same true of every operation and therefore the overall performance? Why not? Do the modules themselves cache and pre-fetch data in the same way CPUs do?
Note I'm only talking about sticks at the exact same frequency and timings - it's easy to understand how faster timings and higher frequencies improve performance.
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> Next time, read the question before blasting away in a mad frenzy.
/. breaks thread integrity when showing anything with a threshold. Everything under the threshold is lumped under "X more replies".
I see where your reply comes from, but you're barking at the wrong tree. Here's why:
randyest is NOT replying to the OP question, he's doing so to a -1 modded answer to it that says more modules are faster because some bullshit he pulled out of his ass.
Of course, there are several things that have failed in this communication channel:
1. You didn't check who randy was replying to (by clicking the "parent" link at the bottom of his post).
2. The -1 modded post didn't change the subject line (left it with Re: whatever).
3. Neither did randy.
4.
5. randy should have quoted who he was answering to. Quoting is good.
Anyway, chill a bit guys.
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