Get your cheap BH-6!

Well, for those unaware, Kingston ValueRam PC2700 can "occasionally" be found with Winbond BH-6 chips. The same chips that Mushkin and others charge so damn much for. Being able to find it for $50/256MB stick is quite the deal. So, yesterday I hopped on down to the local CC and guess what I found?




A closer view of one stick:




Yeppers, that's 5 sticks of BH-6 that I picked up yesterday Actually, I'm lying out my *** by saying I just "hopped" down to the store. I did a full on blitz of the greater DC/Baltimore area, hitting up 15 Best Buys and Circuit Citys in about 6 hours, covering about 2-300 miles in the process. But hey, it was nice out and my bike had been hibernating since November, so I thought why not... Except for the windchill, it was a pretty good roadtrip. Just ignore the funny looks at Circuit City when you're looking up how to get to the next Best Buy via Mapquest

I've only tested 2 out of the 5 sticks so far and things are looking VERY promising. Both sticks individually will do 240MHz at 2-2-2-5 timings with F1 enabled! Here's a screencap (F1 disabled here as CPU-Z incorrectly reports dividers):




With both sticks in place running dual channel, I can run them at 233MHz 2-2-2-5 timings with F1 enabled. Mushkin eat your heart out. Here's a pic of Memtest86+ running:




Anyhow, I'll report back and let you all know how the other sticks turn out. If the other sticks perform as well, you'll soon see a pair of HyperX PC3000 floating around in the For Sale section

BTW, if anyone decides to look around for these gems, I would advise waiting maybe a week. Due to the recent rebate sale on Kingston PC2700, just about all of the Best Buys had little to no Kingston PC2700 ValueRam left in stock. Most Circuit Citys had little to no stock as well. Most all of these stores expected to be restocked in about a week. Also, I've only seen BH6 chips on the 256MB sticks. I've never seen or heard of them being found on the 512MB sticks.

Oh,and for those in the DC area, I picked up one stick at the Circuit City in Annapolis,MD. I found 4 sticks at the Bel Air, MD Circuit City which coincidentally was the very last store I went to. No way in hell I was riding out to PA or DE just to go memory hunting.

wow!!!! now thats what i call hardcore.. great find.....

hmm, I have alot of time this week (School break) I'll try hitting all of the computer stores in the area to see what they have.

How about the 512MB stick?

*Packs it up and heads down to CC.*

Now if there was only a Best Buy or Circuit City less than an hour away...

toaster n me have been corresponding on the d43 stuff. we have found that they uncannily run to about 270, then just stop, no matter how much voltage u give them.. my feeling is that its 1 of three things.. all the d43 is from the same batch, or they were previously speed binned or lastly since added voltage doesnt do anything for the overclock, ( which is not the same with my hyperram) kingston has put in some overvoltage circuitry to prevent maniacs like us from using anything over say 2.9v. Im kinda leaning toward the second or third theory, but to tell the truth i really cant explain it.. but all in all of course the bh6 is an unbelievably good find, the d43 is still running at near pc4100 speeds which makes it a cheap alternative to the pc4000 stuff

Hario, I have yet to see a Kingston PC2700 512MB stick come with BH-6. That would be a really nice find however...

flapperhead, I agree both the BH-6 and Hynix BT-D43 chipped Kingston Valueram are very very good deals. For anyone looking for memory that will do PC4000 speeds without a hitch, then look for Kingston PC3200 ValueRam 2x256MB packs that have the Hynix BT-D43 chips. They are fairly easy to find and they will do 250MHz without a hitch in dual channel mode using low (2.8) voltage. At half the price of name brand overclocker PC4000 and coupled with Best Buy's generous return and warranty policy, they're hard to beat for the price.

that is real good advice, for some looking for quality overclocking ram half the price of mushkin, ocz etc.

Man. Nice find. I want to go down to Best Buy now and take a look. I'm a bit hesitant because I have no cash. If I found some of that memory I would be inconsolable because I couldn't buy it. Lol.

ZachM said:

Man. Nice find. I want to go down to Best Buy now and take a look. I'm a bit hesitant because I have no cash. If I found some of that memory I would be inconsolable because I couldn't buy it. Lol.

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LOL, that's terrible! Funny... but terrible

Ok, I finished the initial testing of the remaining 3 sticks. They do individually:

2-2-2-5 @ 235 MHz with F1 enabled
2-2-2-5 @ 235 MHz with F1 enabled
2-2-2-5 @ 235 MHz with Turbo enabled

I guess there's always one "dud" stick in the bunch. In dual channel, mode I can run the first two listed sticks @ 228MHz with 2-2-2-5 tiings and F1 enabled. I haven't played with loosening the timings just yet as I want to see how far these sticks can go with the tightest timings. Currently, I'm running Memtest using a 4 x 256MB config as I'd like to have 1 Gig of memory. I tried running 2-2-2-5 @ 228 with F1 enabled but I got 2 errors on the 14th loop. Currently, I've dropped the F1 down to Turbo mode and am still error free after 20 passes. I'll reserve judgement till at least 32 passes are completed.

I went to Best Buy. *Knocks head against desk for doing it* I found 2 boxes of Kingston Value RAM 2x256 PC3200 with the Hynix BT-D43 chips. Horribly overpriced at $160 and they didn't have a rebate. They had one box of PC 2700 256 MB, but the chip labels were blanked out.

Anyone have $160 that they want to donate? Lol.

ZachM said:

I went to Best Buy. *Knocks head against desk for doing it* I found 2 boxes of Kingston Value RAM 2x256 PC3200 with the Hynix BT-D43 chips. Horribly overpriced at $160 and they didn't have a rebate. They had one box of PC 2700 256 MB, but the chip labels were blanked out.

Anyone have $160 that they want to donate? Lol.

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Purchase some of Komusa's memory for $69 a piece (256MB) and you'ld save alot more then on sticks of overpriced Value-RAM

Good lord! They must have changed the price today as until yesterday they were still at $90 a pair and previously $65 a pair with rebate. Still, it's funny they're now charging more for their Value-Ram than the HyperX line

what do you look for on the label to see if its BH-6 or not?

You need to look at the chips themselves. Be agressive enough with the employies, and they will let you, I do it all the time when I need to check out a product in the store that doesnt have enough info on the box.

SewerBeing said:

what do you look for on the label to see if its BH-6 or not?

Click to expand...

Look at the second pic I posted in this thread. It shows exactly what the chip on the sticks should look like when you view the stick through the hole in the packaging. The chip should be labeled "Winbond" and have a code printed on it that ends with "BH-6."

Damn, and Im paying a 140$ for 512.. Of course it means I would have saved 80$ once I get a gig, anyways, nice find man.