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How much better will the...
- Thread starter treepop
- Start date
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2003
- Location
- Ft. Hood, TX
This is the basic Winbond CH-5 vs Winbond BH-5 chip question. Buffalo PC3200 uses CH-5 chips, as do Corsair XMS3200 and XMS3500 and most other memory assemblers. Mushkin PC3500 Black Level 2 uses BH-5 chips, as does Buffalo PC3700 and Kingston HyperX3000 and some HyperX3200.
For the vast majority of users, spending $125 more on the Mushkin is not worth it. The performance gain with BH-5 chips over CH-5 is not worth $125 to most people. But for those who want to get every last bit of performance from their computer, and are hell-bent against having their memory as a possible bottleneck, will spend that $125 (these are generally the same people who will spend $500 on a Radeon 9800XT and sell their old 9700 Pro). And then there are other issues. Buffalo PCB's are generally considered just a slight step up from that of a generic everyday PCB, while that from Mushkin's Black line is arguebally the best PCB out there. There's also the issue of gaurentee. This is probably the biggest issue out there. The Buffalo PC3200 promises only lowest of performance (although it's capable of alot more) - DDR400 @ 2.5-4-4-7. While Mushkin BL2 PC3500 promises DDR433 @ 2-2-2-6 and comes with a 2-week Like-it-or-Return-it (for any reason) policy.
Whether or not this makes the $125 differance worth it is up to you. Of course there are other possibilities as well. You could purchase older HyperX 3200 (NON A) for ~$249 which comes with everything but the Black Mushkin PCB and is PC3200. This saves you $40 over the Mushkin BL2 PC3500. Or you could get Buffalo PC3700 (in case it comes back w/ BH-5) for $206, and this would prolly make the most sense overall, but still costs $40 more then Buffalo PC3200 (CH-5).
For the vast majority of users, spending $125 more on the Mushkin is not worth it. The performance gain with BH-5 chips over CH-5 is not worth $125 to most people. But for those who want to get every last bit of performance from their computer, and are hell-bent against having their memory as a possible bottleneck, will spend that $125 (these are generally the same people who will spend $500 on a Radeon 9800XT and sell their old 9700 Pro). And then there are other issues. Buffalo PCB's are generally considered just a slight step up from that of a generic everyday PCB, while that from Mushkin's Black line is arguebally the best PCB out there. There's also the issue of gaurentee. This is probably the biggest issue out there. The Buffalo PC3200 promises only lowest of performance (although it's capable of alot more) - DDR400 @ 2.5-4-4-7. While Mushkin BL2 PC3500 promises DDR433 @ 2-2-2-6 and comes with a 2-week Like-it-or-Return-it (for any reason) policy.
Whether or not this makes the $125 differance worth it is up to you. Of course there are other possibilities as well. You could purchase older HyperX 3200 (NON A) for ~$249 which comes with everything but the Black Mushkin PCB and is PC3200. This saves you $40 over the Mushkin BL2 PC3500. Or you could get Buffalo PC3700 (in case it comes back w/ BH-5) for $206, and this would prolly make the most sense overall, but still costs $40 more then Buffalo PC3200 (CH-5).
Last edited:
OP
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2003
- Thread Starter
- #3
hrmmmmmm......I am gunna only get 512 total.....you think the the buffolo 3700 is gunna have bh5?..I guess I can wait and see......I might just get the 2 x256 3200 buffolo for less then $100...and spend that money I saved on a barton.....hrmmm.....decisions decisions
