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Memory Manufacturers Could be Cheating

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the please-don't-look-at-the-man-behind-the-curtain dept.

Mark Brown writes "Tom's Hardware is live-testing DDR2 memory products in order to determine whether memory manufacturers submit cherry-picked products for reviews. 'GeIL DDR2-667 that was claimed to be purchased performed worse than the review samples they got: 471 MHz for the review samples vs. 421 MHz for the retail memory.'"

9 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. O'RLY by Hinhule · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh dear lord, a company wants to make sure their product gets the best review possible and tests it before they send it.

    I'm shocked!

  2. No way by dg41 · · Score: 5, Funny

    No way, there can't be anyone making dishonest or cheap mem... PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

    1. Re:No way by The+Real+Nem · · Score: 5, Funny

      ARTHUR: There! Look!
      BEDEVERE: What does it say?
      GALAHAD: What language is this?
      BEDEVERE: Brother Maynard, you are a scholar.
      BROTHER MAYNARD: It is Aramaic!
      GALAHAD: Of course. dg41 of Aramathea!
      ALL: Of course.
      ARTHUR: What does it say?
      BROTHER MAYNARD: It reads ... "No way by dg41 (743918) on Wednesday April 12, @02:35PM (#15116780)"
      *EXCITEMENT*
      "No way, there can't be anyone making dishonest or cheap mem... PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA"
      ARTHUR: What?
      BROTHER MAYNARD: "The PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA..."
      BEDEVERE: What's that?
      BROTHER MAYNARD: His computer must have crashed while typing it.
      BEDEVERE: Oh, come on.
      BROTHER MAYNARD: That's what it says.
      ARTHUR: But if his computer was crashing, he wouldn't bother to type "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA". It would just crash.
      BROTHER MAYNARD: It's down there typed on slashdot.
      GALAHAD: Perhaps he was dictating.
      ARTHUR: Shut up. Is that all it says?
      BROTHER MAYNARD: That's all. "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA".
      ARTHUR: "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA".

  3. Well, duh! by bwcarty · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's a reason why Consumer Reports buys all of their products for testing through normal retail outlets.

    1. Re:Well, duh! by Nananine · · Score: 5, Informative

      Retired Washington Post food critic Phyllis Richman used to work around trumped-up meals like this by dressing down and not telling restaurants what days she'd be coming in to try the food. She even went so far as to hiding most of her face in photos so no one could publicly identify her. Really, one of the best critics to ever be published, I really miss her reviews.

      Product reviews in general are a bit more difficult. Although the aforementioned Consumer Reports has a great thing going for them in purchasing products from stores, the thing is that they can AFFORD to do that. Most publications and websites can't, forcing them to rely on review samples. Car companies in particular are notorious for fine-tuning their review vehicles, which why Consumer Reports is highly respected for their year-end car accolades.

  4. Tom's has nothing to complain about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Memory is rated to perform within certain specifications. If it doesn't perform well within this range, that's a legitimate complaint.

    Tom's is complaining about something totally different. They are seeing how well the memory will overclock. But the manufacturer makes no claims about how well it will overclock. They explicitly tell you that they cannot guarantee what will happen. This is a reasonable position on their part.

    But what Tom's is asking is for all memory from a given manufacturer to overclock the same. This is crazy. The manufacturer has every right to switch production methods and to make other changes which could affect overclocking performance. The only question should be: does the memory perfom as specified.

    If you overclock your memory and it works well, good for you. But you have no right to complain if overclocking doesn't work as well as you want!

    1. Re:Tom's has nothing to complain about by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      the manufacturer makes no claims about how well it will overclock.

      THANK you.

      Since the retail product and review sample were both rated as DDR2-667 (or is it 553? Depends on whether you're reading page 2 or page 2 of the "article"), neither one needed to perform reliably at memory clock rates any higher than 333.5MHz. That the retail product didn't fail until it was overclocked to 25% more than its rating suggests to me that it's solid kit.

      I would also hesitate to conclude from the findings that any hardware vendor routinely sends out review samples that outperform retail units. We only have TWO data points here, not enough to extrapolate any type of meaningful findings. For all we know, a different review sample from the same manufacturer would fail at only 340MHz.

  5. I don't really see the problem by LWATCDR · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The ram was rated as DDR2 667 even the retail at 421 MHZ. That comes out to DDR2-842 doesn't it?
    The ram met and far exceeded it's rated clock speed. Sure the give good stuff to reviewers. If the review sites want to do valid tests of which brand of ram is the best for over clocking they would have to purchase multiple samples of each brand from the retail channel.
    When overclocking the truth is your results may very. If you are pushing past specs then some will work and some will not. Heck even different production batches will give different averages.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  6. Hardware Swap Idea by jfuredy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Tom's Hardware and other reviewers may not be able to buy their tested items from retailers, but I can think of a great way to get retail items without any cost to them. When they receive a "cherry picked" piece of hardware they can post it on their website and ask for users to register to purchase a matching retail item to trade. The "winning" user can then get a retail part, ship it to the reviewer, and receive the primo hardware in return. This way the reviewer gets to test both parts, and the user has a good chance of getting a hand-picked piece of hardware. Win-win. Just an idea.