Value RAM Roundup: Computing On a Budget
by Wesley Fink on April 11, 2005 4:26 PM EST- Posted in
- Memory
The Memories
The first task in our look at Value RAM was to define Value RAM. With top memories selling for $250 to $400 (or even higher) for a 1GB kit, we decided that a price limit of $200 for a 1GB kit (2x512MB DIMMs) of DDR memory would be our cut-off. Admittedly, this excludes some good value Samsung TCCD kits from companies like PQI and Patriot, but these products are really just good buys and marketed by the companies as Performance memory.We requested Value RAM for our review from Corsair, Kingston, Mushkin, OCZ and Transcend as a representative cross-section of the memory industry. We asked these manufacturers to supply a 1GB kit (2x512MB) of a Value RAM product or products that sold on the web for less than $200. We asked them to supply whatever RAM they wished that met these criteria, which we would be comparing in performance to other Value RAM products in a memory roundup.
All the manufacturers supplied one or more samples for testing except Corsair. Corsair emailed us, stating that "Our policy is not to send Value Select parts for review for a variety of reasons. After a quick discussion here we decided to stick with that policy and sit this one out." When we asked for clarification, Corsair expressed concern that we would be testing performance and overclocking of their Value products when memory chips change frequently on these products. The concern is that the overclocking performance we would report in a roundup today might not be what a customer would get tomorrow because chips change frequently in value products. Corsair recommended that customers looking for overclocking and enthusiast level performance should purchase Corsair products that are geared to performance and overclocking, where results are consistent.
The Value RAM roundup resulted with seven memory pairs from four manufacturers.
| Manufacturer | Description (Memory Chips) |
Memory Speed | Rated Timings | Web Price (1GB) |
| Kingston | KVR400X64C25/512 (Kingston) |
400 DDR | 2.5-3-3 | $142 |
| Kingston | KVR400X64C3AK2/1G (Elpida) |
400 DDR | 3-3-3 | $100 ($91 on sale) |
| Mushkin | EM Series PC3200 (Unknown) |
400 DDR | 3-3-3 | $147 |
| OCZ | PC3200 Premier P/N OCZ4001024PDC-K (PSC) |
400 DDR | 2.5-3-3-7 | $121 |
| OCZ | PC3200 Value Series P/N OCZ4001024WV3DC-K (Winbond - Value VX) |
400 DDR | 2.5-3-3-7 | $115 |
| OCZ | PC3200 Gold P/N OCZ4001024ELDCGE-K (Winbond BH5) |
400 DDR | 2-2-2-5 | $195 |
| Transcend | JM366D643A-50 (JetRam) |
400 DDR | 2.5-3-3 | $100 |
The seven memories represent quite a range of choices in memory under $200 for a Gigabyte. First, we were pleasantly surprised that all of the memories except one now actually cost below $150 for a Gigabyte. That one memory, OCZ PC3200 Gold, will still interest many Value RAM buyers because it represents the revival of Winbond BH5 chips, which were discontinued from the market over 6 months ago. We are told that Winbond is manufacturing BH5 again from old dies, and we will be testing this Value RAM at the higher voltages possible on the DFI nForce4 motherboard.
The other big surprise is also from OCZ. We learned (when OCZ introduced their VX memory at DDR500 2-2-2 speed) that there would also be a Value Series version of the VX. What we did not expect was that the new "Value VX" would cost just $115 for a Gigabyte of memory. These are the same chips that were top-performers in a recent memory review. The Value Series uses unbinned chips, so performance is not guaranteed, but we were still anxious to see if this or the new Value BH5 might be the proverbial "silk purse from a sow's ear" for the cheap computer enthusiast. We all like to get something for nothing - or, at least, for very little money.
As you will see from the results, there were quite a few surprises in Value RAM performance. This includes a few very cheap but solid performers that will satisfy many users, and a couple of memories that are as mundane as we expect of Value RAM. For those of you looking for dynamite performance at cheap prices, we also found that silk purse amongst the Value RAM candidates.
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LoneWolf15 - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
Thanks for a good article. I usually post response for constructive criticism, but I ought to balance that out more. The Value VX OCZ RAM was particularly interesting and worth knowing about.Wesley Fink - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
#79 - I double-checked the part number on the OCZ "Value BH5" and corrected the Part Number on page 2. Thanks for pointing this out.ericeames - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
I belive that the idea of this roundup was good but it has some flaws:I dont think that getting memories directly from the manufacturer is a good idea. I know that this is how it "works" it makes the result less credible!
The overclocking possibilities is not THAT important altough it should not be neglected.
Compairing them with better brands was a good idea, it makes the results relative.
/
Eric
srstudios - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
Wesley, it seems that the part number is incorrect for the BH-5 OCZ shown on page two.http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/memory/ocz_e...
ELDCGE-K for BH-5 2-2-2
Nice article though, thanks for all the great work!
srstudios - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
xsilver - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
another thing I have to clear up..... I don't mind extreme voltages used on a "performance" review but this was supposed to be a "VALUE" roundup.... so in this situation extreme voltages may not be warrantedxsilver - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
#62 wesley... you continiued analogy is flawed....the thing you forget to mention is that the ferrari only smokes the chevy IF and ONLY IF the racing alcohol is used (3.4v) and the racing alchohol is only available to people who buy say brand X tyres (dfi board).... so in essence you cannot separate the dfi board and the vx + bh5 ram.... they must be used together.....
I stand by my statement that this "review" smells a bit like an advertisment for dfi and ocz
#74
I thought it was generally accepted that you can now get the same performance with 1:1 overclocking on loose cas3 timings as a lower mhz with tighter cas 2 timings.... so the need to push the ram to the highest mhz is unnessessary to get the best performance
JustAnAverageGuy - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
Poor Wesley.The crowds can never be pleased.
AtaStrumf - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
ChineseDemocracyGNR's post reminded me of one more thing that is sooooo... wrong with this article. 240MHz is nowhere near enough for 1:1 OC-ing of A64s, because unlike you, we don't have 2,4 GHz (4000+, 939, 12x multiplier) chips which cost a fortune, but rather 1,8/2,0 GHz (3000+/3200+, 939, 9x/10x multiplier) chips which cost much less. So if you do the math that is 2160/2400 MHz, which is not exacly the limit, at least not anymore, now that the 90 nm Venice chips are just around the corner.AtaStrumf - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
I noticed that typo too Olaf van der Spek, but more importantly this very same Transcend RAM gave me quite a bit of trouble and I would not recommend it to anyone with an A64. I was getting strange errors on my ABIT KV8 K8T800Pro, A64 3200+ S754, 2x512 transend RAM combo, like consistent NERO Identity check failures after a DVD burn. Really annoying!!! There were other stuff too, but the point is after I switched to TwinMOS Twister 3700, PQI OEM 3200, Geil Value 3200, Crucial Ballistix 3200 CL2 (best RAM I tested so far), Corsair XMS 3700 (crap RAM BTW), APACER 4000 (TCCD chips; on A64 won't run with any other stick, eg. 1x512 Ballistix + 1x512 APACER, system only sees 512MB of APACER RAM; checked with many different memories) or any other memory for that matter, everything worked just fine, so there is something really strange wrong with Transcend RAM so I strongly recommend that all A64 users avoid it like a plague.I agree that the only good choice in this roundup was a OCZ VX Value. You shouldn't let manufacturers pick the RAM you test. Ask us what we want to see tested, we'll have plenty of ideas. The ones I'd like to see are Corsair Value (which I know is crap, I just want you to show in Anand's recent blog entry AT's much advertised backbone and prove to Corsair that you will not take their BS excuse and will still test their RAM, even if they don't want you to, because we, the readers, come first), then GEIL Value 3200 isn't all that bad, then TwinMOS Speed Premium, PQI 3200 OEM, Geil pc4000 Ultra Platinum isn't that expensive either.
And please stop at 2,9V, because that is as high as most are willing to go, and don't test more that CAS 2.5 and 1T.