Who's the Best "in-house" Memory Maker?

I've read alot about Corsair, Mushkin, and Kingston being top-of-the-line memory, and (as we all know) each of these makers have one production-thing in common. They don't make their own chips, and instead use the "best" chips they can find on the open market, usually WinBond CH/BH-5.

As long as the chips they use perform well, as they do, this is no drawback to "serious" overclockers who are willing to cash out what it takes to buy them. But for those on a tighter budget, Memory makers who don't have chips manufactured "in-house" are at the qualms of the global chip market, as all non "in-house" makers scramble to corner their own supply of chips during world-wide shortages. Right now we are under a supply-shortage, as seen in Mushkin's being forced to bid on BH-5 chips while other makers fall to lower-performing CH-5 series. While "in-house" makers do expirience shortages just the same, they are more-or-so protected by having "exclusive" rights to their chips.

These days arn't the best of times to purchase memory, as many global chip makers are setting-up to retool or have already begun. This limits production of the chips that we've seen for a while, and of course raises prices. From what I've heard, these price rises will not be getting any better, and will probably get worse, for Q3/Q4 2003.

With the long boring speech out of the way, back to the question. Which maker, with distributers in the states, has currently the best memory? More specifically, which maker has the best PC3200 DDR SDRAM?

Crucial/Micron and GeIL are the two makers that come to my mind currently, what are the other "in-house" makers? If any?

I've read alot of poor reviews on OC forums about GeIL, while also reading alot of good reviews on review-sites. The main problem seems to be inconsistant running with low timings. I am new here, and please pardon me if this may sound absurb, but are low timings always best? I've seen alot of high "real-world" test scores with higher then lowest-possible timings. Buffered scores are nice and all, but unless better memory relates to increased fps, what's the point? (to a gamer) Could there possible be a more optimum timing for certain memory that would allow it to perform "on-par" or exceeding in "real-world" tests then that running at its lowest-possible (as according to bus speed) timing? Is there any tests on this ? (using UnBuffered or "real-world" tests)

I am new here, btw and do not want this thread to be a flame-fest, or ignored if can be.

Samsung makes their own chips but they haven't really made waves since the CTL/DTL pc2700 debacle about a year ago.

Crucial/Micron makes their own and is very reliable and the prices aren't too bad.

My "in-house" Outlook

Crucial has some nice PC3200 memory that is able to be over-clocked to way over its designated speed. At “stock” conditions, the memory performs less then par when tested against WinBond-chip memory. It is limited by its high timings, meant to ensure stability under varying user conditions, and a lack of over-clocking support (void warranty).

GeIL produces some fine memory, but is hampered by a severe lack of support in the over-clocking community. Many detailed reviews have shown their memory to be high-scoring while running at “stock” settings, though unable to achieve high levels of memory bus speeds. They also suffer from varying timing support, (some ppl have gotten good scores at low timing yet unable to run at all with higher timings, while others can’t get low timings at all and are forced to run higher timings; strange variances like that) and some have reported that their modules are unable to run stable at even “stock” settings. I still would want to find out how people are dealing with their new Golden Dragon modules, as many sites have found them to be great performers.

Samsung seems to be dead-in-the-water as far as most of the over-clocking community is concerned. I have heard of a few who say that Samsung makes good quality memory that can take high voltage levels, but from the outspoken majority Samsung seems to be black-listed. I had to search back to TweakTown.com review of early PC3200 Samsung memory for any sort of online evaluation. This single review mentioned that the Samsung PC3200 was using 4ns chips, which I would believe is good, no?

I’m still trying to find the “best” non-WinBond-chip memory, available in the US and at a reasonable price. What is it?

My vote goes to Samsung overall. The 6ns Samsung chips found in their PC2700 sticks are capable of reaching up to DDR400 at 5-2-2-2 with 2.7v only; this is what one of my friends reached on a board that allowed nothing higher or tighter. It should do far better with more voltage and relaxed timings. I think that PC3200 sticks use the same chips. If you relaxed them to 6-3-3-2.5 or so and 3.0v, I'd expect DDR460 to be within reach. This is only a notch below what plenty of Winbond-equipped sticks are capable of, for about half the cost.

This would probably be harder to come by, but if you can find sticks with V-Data 4.5ns chips, they could probably outperform just about everything else. My sticks are based on them, and I've reached 228mhz with rather tight timings. They do have more left in them, though.

From what i hear Geil makes so very good top level products but theyre more value oriented products leave something to be desired for example the PC3200 256MB sticks that are selling for around $40 on newegg I hear are trully horrible but some of theyre more costly types are very good. anyone have experience with these?

oh and welcome to the forums!