BH5 vs CH5

I am upgrading my main box soon and I have been reading in here about BH5 memory vs CH5. The platform I am upgrading from is 25 months old so any upgrade will be a big boost for me. From what I am reading tonight (both here and on mushkin.com) it looks like the BH5 chips are an endangered species at this point.

I have space on my credit cards to jump if I need to but I want to know just what the difference is between the two. So what is the real difference between BH5 and CH5?

If BH5 only gets me an extra 1 mhz on my FSB then I can take my time. If CH5 is going to cost me like 15 mhz then I want to know now so that I can jump while the opportunity presents itself.

I can't get my CH5 to run tight timings at all, the best it can do is 2.5-3-3 @ about 215mhz w/ 2.8v. A lot of people can get their BH5 up to at least 220 2-2-2 with that voltage. BH-5 is definitely worth it, especially for an AMD system.

The physical differances between Winbond's BH-5 chips and CH-5 chips is an arguable issue. Lots of misinfomation spread by assumption is out there.

But one thing that is basically proven is that the Winbond BH-5 chip was one the best 5ns chips made. Expiriences since mid-2002 have been, generally, quite favorable for memory using Winbond's BH-5 chips. Winbond BH-5 memory usually responds very well to increased voltage, is able to maintain tight timings even at very high clock speeds, and, basically, just outperformed any earlier competetion.

When Winbond started replacing their BH-5 chips with their CH-5 chips, it was a step backwards for DDR memory. Winbond CH-5 chips are fine overclocking memory, that has been proven. They are capable of running over DDR400 speeds with 2-3-2 timings (CAS-tRCD-tRP). The differance in most applications between 2-3-2 timings and 2-2-2 timings ranges between ~3-5%, usable bandwidth differs by 5%.

Whether or not this theoretical increase in performance is worth it is an unfair question to ask. Performance for everyone varies significantly, and there arn't many gaurentees in the world. But if the conflict is seen as a price issue, then there are many ways to view it. There's the fact that not all memory shipping with Winbond BH-5 chips is costy. And those that are seemingly costy, may appear as a bargain when compared with equivelent brands shipping with Winbond CH-5 chips.

Compare the cost of Kingston HyperX PC3000 with Buffalo PC3200 (Winbond CH-5 chips) and the Kingston's do come out to be a significant percentage more. But compare Kingston HyperX PC3200 (non-A) - or Kingston HyperX PC3000 - with Corsair XMS PC3200 and the price differance shrinks. Compare Mushkin Black Level 2 PC3200 price-wise with Corsair PC3200 LL or PRO and they are equal - or even less costy for Mushkin.

johan851 said:

I can't get my CH5 to run tight timings at all, the best it can do is 2.5-3-3 @ about 215mhz w/ 2.8v. A lot of people can get their BH5 up to at least 220 2-2-2 with that voltage. BH-5 is definitely worth it, especially for an AMD system.

Click to expand...

My Mushkin pc3500 Level1 (2x256)is running 230fsb out of the box in DC @ 2-3-3-11 and 2.6v without a glitch.I have no doubt it can go higher. Concidering I only paid $103 for the match pair at newegg I think there doing pretty good so far.

One thing I have proved to myself is that CH-5 SUCKS if you can't go over 2.7 volts on you motherboard. I can barely get it to do 3Mhz over stock speeds and remain stable. Buffalo PC3200 w/ winbond CH-5 2x256mb on nforce2 ultra 400. Bah.

Odd, with 2.8v my CH-5 sticks do 220 at 2-3-2-5 and 230 at 2.5-3-3-7. I memtested them on an Intel setup and an AMD setup. Basically, I think you'll run higher FSBs with looser timings on CH-5; you can run tighter timings with high FSB on BH-5s, but you generally have to give them over 3v.

The ch-5 seems to function fine in AMD systems. It's the Pentiums that seem to have more issues with it.

The difference is minimal for AMD systems, and even for Intel systems while running the 1:1 ratio. It's when you try to run 5:4 on an i865/875 that CH5 is dissapointing. In your situation I wouldn't worry too much about it, but on the other hand if you choose to spend the premium to get BH5s you probably won't regret it.

I'm lucky enough to own both CH-5's and BH-5's and a stick of Samsung TCB-3

I've got:
2 x 256MB of Corsair XMS 3500 v1.1 [BH-5]
2 x 512MB of Buffalo PC 3200 [CH-5]
and 1 x 256MB of Corsair XMS 3000 v 1.1[TCB-3]

The XMS 3500 reaches 225MHz @ 2.0, 2, 2, 6, with 2.90 volts
The XMS 3000 reaches 220MHz @ 2.0, 2, 2, 6 with 2.90 volts
The Buffalo PC3200 reaches 220MHz @ 2.0, 2, 3, 6, with 2.90 volts

With the CH-5 you will notice the "3" in the timmings this is the Ras to Cas Delay and one of the most important timming values !
The CH-5 simply do not like running this value @ 2 above 190MHz with any volts you care to give it !


So whats the difference, I hear you say? well quite frankly, bugger all ! [SWEET F A , for all you non australians]

When I tested the BH-5's, with My Barton 2500+ Running at 11 x 200MHz I got the following results:

Sandra Mem @ 2.0, 2, 2, 6: INT = 3061, FLOAT = 2885 [5 run average]
Sandra Mem @ 2.0, 2, 3, 6: INT = 3054, FLOAT = 2874 [5 run average]

3DMark2001SE with a stock GeForce Ti4200 64Mb
@ 2.0, 2, 2, 6 = 12199 [5 run average]
@ 2.0, 2, 3, 6 = 12040 [5 run average]

So there you go, the difference between a Ras to Cas Delay value of 2 & 3 is 160----> 3D2001 Marks !

OH and my 1 GB of Buffalo PC3200 cost me $146 Delivered from
HERE


Edit: I think the XMS3500 will go higher, My CPU is running at it's limit at that FSB speed!!

OK this just in: I found that there is a computer show in my area tommorow so I am going to nose around and see what the deals are. Since I am going to be using AMD I guess that I don't have to worry all that much about which chips I end up with but if I see a deal I will probably grab it.

More than likely I am going to try to walk out of there with an unlocked Barton rather than the memory but until I get there and see what I see I really cannot say. Is it safe to say that as long as I keep an eye out for Mushkin level 2 or Kingston Hyper-X, I stand a chance of getting the BH5 stuff or is there some insider code in the part numbers to look out for (like the week number on Barton procs)?

The show was an almost total bust. It turned out to be a bit of everything with four computer vendors. All of them were small shops that could not offer "economy of scale" deals. So everything was overpriced. I saw lots of 600 mhz laptops for a bit more that $700 and lots of Asus mobos for >$100.

But my last question remains. What do I look for if I want to get the primo RAM?

Most BH-5 memory is (or has the potential to be) primo RAM. Given the voltage needed to run high speeds with stablity and you will have some great performing memory. If you want to get picky, it seems that the higher overclocking BH-5 chips appear to be the older ones. But there's no actual evidence this is the case, and most BH-5 chips made in 2003 are performing well-to-great on Mushkin Black Level 2 and OCZ PC3500 EL Platinum.

Mushkin Black Level 2 PC3200 is a good buy for $135/$256 (2x256MB/2x512MB respectively). If you want the added assurance, Mushkin Black Level 2 PC3500 may give you some added performance at lower voltage - due to be tested and binned by Mushkin. Or, if you want to save $50, Kingston HyperX PC3000 is good.

Thanks for this thread. I was a little concerned about my ocz EL PLAT by reading on this board the dismal overclocks people were getting with ch5 chips. Im kind of curious though, are these speeds acheived with single or dual channel operation? I have some ocz pc 3200 el platinum sticks in dual righ tnow.
some of the tables i see here place some of their 3200 hitting 220 mhz at 2,2,3,6.
I tried to set these timings at 2.9 volts. the most my nf7 can give and no juice.
in fact, if i try to fun anything higher than 210 mhz, I belive my memory gets unstable. Im totally new to high performence ram too. =\
what is the highest i can get in dual channel? and what kind of decrease in perfomence would i get by disabling dual channel?

The speeds I quoted for the Buffalo PC3200 and XMS3500 were working in duel cannel configuration:

Buffalo 2 x 512Mb, XMS3500 2 x 256Mb ! Running in My NF7-S v 2.0

hmmmmmm. I will have to further test mine for stability. i tested 2,2,3,7@ 220 mhz with 2.9 volts and it wouldnt go. its possible my chip couldnt handle that, but i was being conservative, 10x multi.
chipset voltage to 1.7 for this?

Valk said:

hmmmmmm. I will have to further test mine for stability. i tested 2,2,3,7@ 220 mhz with 2.9 volts and it wouldnt go. its possible my chip couldnt handle that, but i was being conservative, 10x multi.
chipset voltage to 1.7 for this?

Click to expand...

The Abit NF7-S v 2's dont like multipliers 9 - 10.5.... atleast mine didn't !


What HSF are you using?

If you have a good HSF combo, try 220 x 11 @ 1.95 volts then do memtest!

Valk, have you tried moving your ram around to the different slots to see if that helps? Even before we got into the modern memory and controller architechture it was common enough that some mobos did better with the ram in slots 1 and 3 and others liked the 1 and 2 combo.

Most points have already been dealt with, but it should be noted that the overclockability of CH-5 based sticks depends rather heavily on the PCB. All brands of CH-5 don't do identically, not even by a long shot. It seems a little harder to find a good stick of CH-5, but if you do, they turn out to do great in many cases, even better than BH-5 sticks. If you're going to run dual channel in an nForce2, BH-5 sticks tend to be hurt by running in slot 3 for DC, whereas CH5 sticks do not. The best CH5 sticks I've seen to date are by Twinmos, which seem to reach 230+ using 3v or below and relatively tight timings. Given the enormous price difference, but low performance difference, between the Hyperx3000(Cheapest guaranteed BH5) and the Buffalo PC3200, I'd say that the latter is a better choice. BH5 doesn't reach its full potential without well over 3v anyways.

just want to add,

If you want to get higher FSB than tight timming, consider Adata Vitesta, most reviews says that it can run @ high timmings that usual mem does, and Cheap !, Vitesta (with Heat spreader) DDR 500, 256 mb only cost abot $65 per sticks.

I also posting some topics about Vitesta as well, the only things that i want to know is what chip this baby use, and the fastest timmings, consider running on DDR400, can it be 5-2-2-2 ????

Tighest timming, THE ONE AND ONLY, BH-5

Hi guys.




Spec:

Abit NF7 v2.0
XP2500 0326 (unlocked)
2 x 512MB TwinMOS w/Winbond CH5

RAM was at 223 @ 5-3-2-2.0 w/ 2.6v

Volts:

CPU: 1.7
RAM: 2.6
NB: 1.6

Overall, i'm very happy with this RAM. It was only just over £100 for 1GB too, not sure what that is in US money.