What's the best cheap-ish mem?

Hey all, I'm looking for a gig of mem to run dual channel, but I don't wanna spend lots of cash. What do you all think of these sticks?

Winbond Cas 2 3500: http://www.hardcorecooling.us/product.asp?0=200&1=201&3=444

GeIL Golden Dragon 3500: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?description=20-144-605&refer=pricewatch

Samsung 3500: http://www.komusa.com/samsung.html

I'm willing to give these about 2.9v, maybe 3v to the mem. I also plan to use these same sticks in a future system, like maybe a P4c or AFX. I know they won't go as far as OCZ 4200 but I don't need to be #1. If I can get 220-225FSB with semi-decent timings it'll be fast enough

BTW I run a 2.3GHz NF2 Athlon system now and probably will continue to use it for a couple more months at least.

--Illah

I dont think you need 3500 ram for dual channel. In fact, a lot of people are settling for 3200 ram with dual channel for their awesom overclocking speeds. If you wanted to go cheap but good performance, buy some TwinMos or Buffalo Tech sticks with winbond memory.

sup Illah?

bufallo tech pc3700 has winbond bh-5 chips. right now mine is doing 220mhz @ 2-2-2-5 2.8v. excellent buy @ newegg for $60something for a 256MB stick.


J.

Another vote for the buffalo 3700.


I wouldn't get the hard core cooling stuff because it is probably CH5 chips, and the BH5s the buffalo 3700 carries play nicer with Intel dual channel chipsets. If you want CH5 get the buffalo 3200, it is cheaper anyway.

The Geil may well be great stuff, but I haven't had the opportunity to try it. I hear mixed reports about Geil, but I have heard some positive things about the GD stuff. I'd still call it a bit of a gamble though.

I would streer far clear of that komusa stuff, as Samsung makes no 3500 class chips as far as I know and their 3200 is nothing special.

Wow, that 3700 is only $99/512MB stick! Two of those would be cheaper than some of the crap I listed. Sounds like a deal.

But before I whip out the cards can you all tell me the main differences between CH5 and BH5 chips (other than BH5 is better, which I can infer from what you've already said )?

Thanks.

--Illah

CH5 wont do 2-2-2 only 3-2-2 unless you shove some assbackwards voltage down its throat. Other than that I haven't seena difference.

Well, the diff between 3200 and 3700 is $11, so I may as well just get the 3700 w/ BH5 chips. Plus it's garaunteed for 233FSB

--Illah

Lithan said:

CH5 wont do 2-2-2 only 3-2-2 unless you shove some assbackwards voltage down its throat. Other than that I haven't seena difference.

Click to expand...

There's a bit more difference than that.

Intel has focused tremendous energy and expertise on optimizing the memory subsystem performance of the 865/875 series chipsets. Towards this end, they have created the performance acceleration technology (or some such, known as PAT). This technology bypasses portions of the memory controller and requires very high quality ram to function with stability.

This is one of the big differences between AMD and Intel platforms at this point. CH5 tends to do fine with Nforce2 or other AMD-supporting chipsets, at most requiring the minor timing adjustment described above. But it's a different story with the DC Intel stuff. CH5 has a hard time running at 400MHz, and if you enable PAT, run fast bios timings, and/or try to overclock it only gets worse. BH5 just holds up better to the incredibly aggressive calibrations of the Intel chipsets.

I wouldn't think of the Bufallo 3700 as 3700, more like really high quality 3200. It's definitely not going to do 466MHz with PAT and fast timings on any sane voltage. But it will do 400MHz with the stiffest settings you can throw at it, and the realized performance on DC Intel stuff at this clock level is sufficient to essentially maximize the system's performance.

As dual channel is common now, memory clock rate is not nearly so critical. And Intel's optimizations that assume a 400MHz operation speed make this all the more true, as elevated clock rates will likely require turning off or reducing many of these optimizations to achieve stability and in doing so you give back the performance increase one would expect from the elevated clock rates.

Are they the same ns chips? I'm guessing 5ns/200MHz. I'm gonna be on AMD for some time but it's good to know these can migrate to future P4c systems (long term plan ).

--Illah

Yep, both 5ns. The CH5 uses a die shrink that allows them to be manufactured more cheaply but for some strange reason doesn't help performance. And on the Intel side of the fence it hurts performance. I think there are other changes between the two chips that account for the performance variation, as generally a die shrink helps.

CH-5 is just a die-shrink of BH-5, I believe.

Hmm, so what's the average OC for this mem? If it's 5ns labled as PC3700 that would make it overclocked right off the bat... Can I expect to go much farther? I tend to stick around 2.8-2.9vDimm.

--Illah

Virtually anything labled greater than 3200 is "overclocked". There are very few chips rated faster than 5ns being used currently, and those that are are not always the best performers.

It's hard to say what an average for this memory is, as the Intel and AMD platforms are so much different in regards to the memory subsystem these days. If you are talking about a single channel Intel or an AMD system, 466MHz is very attainable, if not average. If you are talking about a dual channel Intel system, the average would drop into the 440MHz region.

Even on the low 440MHz it's just what I wanted, 220-225FSB capable I'll probably get these.

--Illah

I snaggd some d43 hynix off of ebay but they were A's i think. But i herd these are awesome overclockers. These were 3200 btw and i bought 2 256 for $88+$5 shipping.

My vote goes toward the Windbond 3200 chips. Great prices and great performance.

I'm running the Buffalo pc3200 ch5 chips right now. 2x256. Maybe it's just the ones I got, but I can't get them 12 hour Prime95 stable at anything above 208 FSB. I kept the multiplier way down to keep my 1700+ at 1.4gig so it's not the cpu. If I had it to do over again I would still go w/buffalo but the 3700 instead.
I still have a good shot at a decent o/c though. I am running Prime95 right now at 208*11 @ only 1.65 Vcore and 39ºC load temp, so there is lots of headroom still!
I have heard of people hitting 230 FSB with the 3200 sticks, but not me.

Man, there's a pretty good case going for these sticks... Considering nothing will ship till Monday anyway that give me another day to explore my options

So what would be a step up from this? Like something with a decent shot at 240FSB? How much would 2x512 of that cost me?

Thanks for all the responses!

--Illah

There isn't as clear a consensus when it comes to the 480MHz level. I've seen some people report good luck with Geil, OCZ, and Adata stuff, most of it is pretty expensive and the results seem highly variable to me. Your best bet it to use the search engine and search for a particular type of memory and see what the users of it report. And you have a lot better chance of pulling off such a feat with 256MB sticks rather than 512MB ones.