I think all the BH-5 being put in the ram in 2003 were basically leftover from 2002, after Corsair took their fill. Can anyone confirm that Winbond ACTUALLY resumed production in 2003? So the quality was going downhill.
The BH-5 in this KHX3000 may be somewhat bottom of the barrel, and I say that owning two 512 MB sticks. As collector of seven 512 MB XMS3500 sticks, you may ask why I got the Kingston. I knew the KHX weren't going to be as good in the tight, but in hopes they would run 5:4 a bit higher than high-strung Corsair. Nope, opposite. They don't do as high and need to be downgraded to 2-3-2-5. I got five rigs so I can always throw them in something (like maybe my CUV266 Coppermine DDR board
).
They are not bad, capable of 240, 1:1, 2-2-2-5 at 3.3 volts (DC). They can do 5:4 up to 283 on the Asus boards, and maybe 275 on Abit boards. I am currently running them 217, 2-2-2-5 at 2.86 VDIMM on an 8RDA+. That's DC. In SC each stick can do 220. On an unmodded 8RDA+, that ain't shabby.
Some people have noticed the 512 MB KHX3000 fail Prime, and I notice it too. The rig above is thoroughly stable in 3D and CPU benches (including all three 3DMarks), but fails the SuperPI 16M run within 30 sec. I dare not RMA them for fear of getting worse stuff (besides, I got the Corsair). Mine have the 33 legs of genuine BH-5.
If you are really desparate for BH-5, they are not bad. I got them from Newegg as available on a limited basis, but this was 5 months ago. Don't know what's in the stuff now.