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Hardware Technology

Dual Channel Memory Shootout 204

Posted by CowboyNeal from the ram-roundup dept.
MDT48 writes "Ever wondered if that expensive low latency memory was worth the cash? These guys have rounded up almost every memory module out there and hammered them. Must have taken them ages, and takes almost as long to read, well worth the effort though."
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Dual Channel Memory Shootout More

Dual Channel Memory Shootout

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  • Results (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:42PM (#9713347)
    For those that don't have time to read 33 pages, or even 1 page:

    The Winners [trustedreviews.com]

    • Ooh, shiny thing! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Animats ( 122034 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:51PM (#9713393) Homepage
      Their criteria: "high-shine chrome-like heat spreaders".

      This is for the crowd that puts neon lights in their PC. Not the people who buy ECC memory for their desktops.


      • I'd tell you which stick was the best, but I don't remember. Must have picked the wrong one for my new brain mod....

        --
        Kirby Reviews [generalhouseware.com]

    • worth the cash? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Looking at the benchmarks, in most cases I would say..... no
    • Good to know, i just bought a 1GB stick of what the review says is "some of the fastest PC3200 memory on the planet". Sweet. I'm gonna go wait for UPS...

      • Re:Results (Score:5, Informative)

        by randyest ( 589159 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @11:06PM (#9713704) Homepage
        Super! But note that the article is old, or at least a bit behind the times (it takes time to compile, plot, and publish all that data!) Newer, faster RAM is already available and can allow even tighter RAM timing (2-2-2-2 anyone?) and more overclocking (my DDR500 runs stably at 325MHz FSB.)

        For example, you can get PC4000 (DDR500) [newegg.com] @ $259/GB, PC4200 (DDR533) [newegg.com] @ $283/GB, PC4400 (DDR550) [newegg.com] @ $314/GB, PC2-4300 [newegg.com] (DDR2-533, if you happen to have a DDR2 mobo, the others above will all waor in any DDR mobo) are all available cheaper/MB than the high-performers reviewed.

        What'd you pay for that "fastest PC3200 memory on the planet" and let me know how fast you can push it (and be stable) once you get it?
        • I didn't buy the ram based on this article, just a strange coincidence, and you are correct. But Corsair's XL 2-2-2 memory isn't avalible in 1GB sticks yet. This is what i got. [newegg.com] I dont mind paying a little more for something thats fast without overclocking(=fast and stable).
    • Corsair Twin QuadraX 2048-5000XXXL Pro Ultra Mega Super Platinum.

      I have one of these and it smokes everything else in their review.

  • TrustedReviews? (Score:5, Funny)

    by angst7 ( 62954 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:45PM (#9713362) Homepage
    Never heard of them. But they sound reliable!

  • Now Nobody will RTFA (Score:5, Funny)

    by IcEMaN252 ( 579647 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:47PM (#9713367) Homepage
    Most people don't even read the short articles!

  • RAM Speed Differences (Score:3, Interesting)

    by HitByASquirrel ( 710289 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:48PM (#9713377)
    Anyone know if 4 512MB PC3200 DDR 400 chips is faster/slower than 2 1GB PC3200 DDR 400 chips?

  • Memory review cache? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bill_Royle ( 639563 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:48PM (#9713378)
    I suppose asking for a cached copy of this article would be a bit too ironic, right?

  • Mid Line Recommendation (Score:4, Informative)

    by Dominatus ( 796241 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:48PM (#9713379)
    GEIL Not only do they have GEIL placing well in the middle of the lineup both in price and performance, but I have noted that it offers the best of both worlds. It doesn't cost nearly as much as the high high end stuff, and while it doesn't perform *quite* as well, it's still better than the low end stuff. GEIL presents a good opporutinity to chose between Value and High End
    • i second that. i personally run geil in my main machine (this one that im using right now).

      i was a bit worried about heat tho when i first got them, because they are 216 (433)mhz chips w/o heat spreaders, but what they did with their golden dragon series was nice, altho the red eyes do clash with the blue themed computer to create an odd "purple haze" effect in the middle of the system.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • My GEIL Gold Dragons work pretty well, and they are measurably faster than the cheap stuff. I'm not quite into high-end yet.

      I do know the Gold Dragons make hash of the Kingstons in my machines (Kingstons work fine, just not as fast). And the price was right.

  • 33 pages (Score:5, Informative)

    by pvt_medic ( 715692 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:49PM (#9713381)
    Well since it is a 33 page read, how about the link to the end where the conclusions are.
    Conclusion [trustedreviews.com]
    The Winner [trustedreviews.com]

    and for those too lazy to click
    Conclusion
    So there we have it, 18 different types of memory benchmarked to within an inch of their life and to prove what? Well, one thing we've proved is that while even value memory may offer sustained levels of high speed operation, when you want to make it to the scary end of the spectrum above 250MHz you generally need to pay the price premium associated with "enthusiast" modules. Cheaper stuff may get you close, but at the very high-end we're afraid you really do get what you pay for.

    If you're happy to settle for fast rather than fastest, it seems that reputations and price tags count for little in this game. Good chips on a poorly designed PCB and poor chips on a great PCB will both leave you wanting. And even if you have the best and fastest memory on the planet you still need a motherboard that can do it justice.

    Evaluating performance at more reasonable frequencies is slightly easier, but also slightly fuzzier. Some of the benchmark results varied so widely that it was hard to understand what was really going on, and with various tests favouring different attributes and the surprisingly similar stock performance from many of the modules on test, it was almost an exercise in identifying the "Top Dogs", the "Turkeys" and "The Rest".

    We hope you enjoyed this roundup and gleaned at least some information from the effort that went into it. As we hope you've seen, or will see when you glance through the benchmark results, memory is a very complex subject and pinning it down in performance terms isn't as simple as you might imagine. We won't let that stop us trying though.

    Finally we'll pick out some winners. Remember that for our purposes, overclocking is more a pleasant bonus than an essential feature, and though we have made allowance for overclocking performance it hasn't been given the same weight that it might have been given were we writing this roundup purely for enthusiasts.

    Finally, benchmarks do a great job of highlighting strengths and weaknesses in products but it's important to keep things in perspective. Most of us would not notice any tangible performance differences between even the fastest and slowest modules on test here when run at the processor's default speed unless we were specifically looking for them. That's not to say that faster isn't better, it's just not as critical as some would have us believe.

    The Winners
    Value Editor's Choice - TwinMOS PC4000 CL2.5

    Concerns over availability make us a little nervous about handing the value crown to TwinMOS, but we can't argue with the numbers and this is quite simply the fastest memory for the money that we had the pleasure of testing. We only hope the poor availability isn't due to production constraints and look forward to seeing more retailers pick up on what appears to be a very nice product.

    Value Recommended - Buffalo PC3200 CL3

    We may have had little experience with Buffalo before this roundup but both of the Buffalo modules we were sent acquitted themselves well in testing. For the most part, performance levels in the value group contenders were quite evenly matched but Buffalo did enough to scrape onto our leader board. A very impressive all-round showing earns Buffalo a well-deserved Recommended award.

    High-End Editor's Choice - Corsair TwinX1024-3200XL Pro

    Perhaps the toughest choice of all, we eventually opted for Corsair's 3200XL Pro for its shear arrogance. While far from cheap, it consistently set the standards for stock performance while flashing a knowing LED at the competition as it did so. For a change we see a product with a bite every bit as bad as its bark.

    Hig

  • /.ed (Score:5, Funny)

    by Quixote ( 154172 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:49PM (#9713382) Homepage Journal
    Their server could sure use some of that memory now...
  • I've got some old OCZ (PC150!), but I've always liked them, their chips and their service. Cool to see them win the 'high-end' though not a surprise, I think they sell the best RAM out there today.

    Anytime you see a 'smaller guy' win something, it's always a nice thing.

    P
    • I've heard some bad things about OCZ being hit or miss. Can anyone fill me in on the deal about OCZ?

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • So, are you going to tell us from whence cometh this "understanding" or, by your silence, will you implicitly admit that you made that up, or heard it from a friend-of-a-friend, and actually have no fucking clue?

          Your move! ;)
    • They still owe me 512MB of RAM. I sent in 1 GB of defective RAM, they only sent back 512 MB. No joy getting that memory back from them, so they're on my shit list. That said, the RAM they did send back was remarked Samsung, very good chips (the chips I sent in were generic, godknows who made them). But I'll stick to Kingston next time.

      • But I'll stick to Kingston next time.

        Smart man. The questions you you should be asking when buying memory isn't "how fast can I overclock it", but rather "how stable is it" and and "how good is the vendor's quality control and customer service". Kingston wins hands down on these counts.

        As for the tests in the article, they are flawed because they only tested one sample for each vendor. A single sample is not statistically significant -- you have no way of knowing if you just got lucky and got a pa

  • Single-page version (Score:5, Informative)

    by Quixote ( 154172 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:53PM (#9713404) Homepage Journal
    Sinle page version of the article here [trustedreviews.com]

    (just in case someone has the urge to actually RTFA...)

  • Just wondering if anyone can explain what GB Micro memory is? I just ordered some:

    "GB Micro 512MB PC-3200 DDR400 SDRAM Dual Channel Kit"

    which at 126$CAN was 23$CAN less expensive then Kingston and 43$CAN less expensive then the OCZ... Anyone know what the heck it is and how well it ranks?

  • how convenient (Score:5, Funny)

    by rd4tech ( 711615 ) * on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:57PM (#9713425)
    they put everything into 33 darn pages so it can be mirrored easily...
  • Must have taken them ages, and takes almost as long to read, well worth the effort though.
    Yeah .. Tell me what to buy for Doom III

  • Google saves (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by rd4tech ( 711615 ) *
    Here's a cached link on google for the first page here [216.239.41.104]

  • Great tests, but lacking the new goodness (Score:5, Interesting)

    by randyest ( 589159 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @10:08PM (#9713473) Homepage
    PC4000 (DDR500) RAM and faster [newegg.com]) is here, and it's a lot faster than anything they reviewed. Even if your CPU/Mobo don't support more than DDR200 or DDR333, you can get lower latency (i.e., 2-2-2-2 [upgradinga...ingpcs.com] BIOS timing options will be usable at lower frequencies) and be ready for upgrades using faster RAM.

    I just picked up two 512MB sticks of this amazing stuff to go with my AMD64 3200+ from, of all places, Circuit City (because it is only $129 [circuitcity.com] each, cheaper even than newegg [newegg.com], which is usually a great deal for RAM and has amazing reseller ratings [resellerratings.com].) Though I just noticed there's a new $40 rebate [65.119.30.151] on newegg's $299 price (for 1GB), making the net $259, or about the same as I paid at CC. Then again, I hate rebates.)

    No shipping and insta-pick up at Circuit Shitty (though newegg is usally free for fedex saver), even with MA 5% sales tax it's a steal.

    Sorry, I digress -- I'm full of gin, tonic, and Italian food. Back OT -- they got their best RAM up to 275MHz FSB (DDR550). The Kingston I got works stable up to 325MHZ (DDR650!!) and it's not much more (a few cents/MB) than the reviewed [trustedreviews.com] RAM.

    Just thought I'd share all I recently discovered before someone runs out and buys the best of this review. I think it took so long to write all that review text and compile/plot the data that they missed the new goodies!
    • >Sorry, I digress -- I'm full of gin, tonic, and Italian food. Back OT -- they got their best RAM up to 275MHz FSB (DDR550). The Kingston I got works stable up to 325MHZ (DDR650!!) and it's not much more (a few cents/MB) than the reviewed RAM.

      You got lucky. Sometimes low-latency memory doesn't even work at lower than rated speed with more than one module installed if you don't buy matched, pretested pairs.
      • You got lucky.

        Maybe, but DDR500-qualified RAM is guaranteed to achieve better poorest timing (worst-case, of the worst sample of all batches) than DDR400, which was the fastest reviewed in the article. My point is that, given even DDR550 [newegg.com] is available, they seem to have completely missed the "sweet spot." For the same price as their best DDR400, you can have DDR500 [newegg.com] that will either (1) run at 250FSB if you have or are overclocking to that or (2) give better timing (closer to 2-2-2-2 [upgradinga...ingpcs.com]) in DDR200/333/400
        • The ddr 500 you linked to has a cas latency of 3-4-4-8 not 2-2-2-2 so in effect it can pump 25% mor data at 1/2 the speed in cycles consumed. so in the time a ddr 400 can have completed 800,000 operations on it's memory, the pc 500 will have only performed 400,000 operations, but the volume of data it could have performed operations on is still going to be 25% greater, so the 400 mhs could have performed 800,000 operatrions on say (just for arguments sake) 128 MB of memory, in the time the 500 could have pe
          • The ddr 500 you linked to has a cas latency of 3-4-4-8 not 2-2-2-2 so in effect it can pump 25% mor data at 1/2 the speed in cycles consumed.

            Do you know what the units of those numbers are (3-4-4-8 and 2-2-2-2)? Judging rom the rest of your post it seems you think they are time units, such as 3ns/4ns/4ns/8ns or something. That's not the case, though. The units are clock cycles. And a clock cycle at 500MHz is a shorter time interval than a clock cycle at 400MHz.

            You seem to miss that critical issue
            • [3,8] clock cycles at 500 MHz = [6,16] ns
              2 clock cycles at 400 MHz = 5 ns

              [6,16]ns/5ns = [1.2,3.2]

              The 500-MHz 3-4-4-8 takes between 20% and 220% longer than the 400-MHz 2-2-2-2 for comparable accesses.

              So if your point was that the 500-MHz 3-4-4-8 couldn't be slower than the 400-MHz 2-2-2-2, then it was wrong.

  • A RAM Primer (Score:5, Informative)

    by diagnosis ( 38691 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @10:13PM (#9713492) Homepage
    And if you would just like a short introduction to what the heck RAM speed means, check out this excellent Arstechnica.com article:

    FSB and memory speeds [arstechnica.com]

    ---------------------
    Freedom or Evil: Freevil.net [freevil.net]
    G. W. Bush says, "You decide!"

  • It's all about the CAS timings (Score:4, Informative)

    by Thaidog ( 235587 ) <slashdot753@nym.hush. c o m> on Thursday July 15, 2004 @10:14PM (#9713496)
    The better the cas timing the better the ram... Also more sticks in the banks cases more latency... if you can do one stick 512 vs 2 256 it will give less sytem latency... I wonder what dual channel ram does to system latency... if there is more because 2 sticks have to be addressed...hmmm?
    • The fact that the bandwidth is increased on a system that can utilize it with dual channel obviously completely negates any latency issues.

  • Individual chip variation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @10:15PM (#9713499)
    Anybody who's looked into overclocking a CPU knows that two chips are NOT necessarily the same just because they have the same model number. In fact no two are quite the same, even if they came from the very same wafer.

    So now that they tested all these brands and models, how consistent are the results? If I go to newegg and get the one that worked best for them, will the one I get work equally well? On a different board? With a different chipset?

    • RTFA! They tested everyone piece of RAM in every possible configuration...

      DUH...
    • RTFAC [slashdot.org] (article copy posted by a nice slashdotter). They pay little attention to overclocking. That would make brand comparison way too expensive - you would need like a hundred chips bought over the course of a few month, from different stores. With that out of the way, chips are tested to perform to stated specs. If yourth doesn't, you can probably exchange it as defective.

      The main value of the benchmark than, is to check if the manufacturer is honest. I am sure front side bus has some concept of retries

  • Mushkin? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SpootFinallyRegister ( 787720 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @10:17PM (#9713507)
    Where's the mushkin at?

    Does this seem like a pretty major omission to anyone else?

  • never saw the point of the super duper RAM (Score:3, Interesting)

    by alen ( 225700 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @10:20PM (#9713524)
    I'd rather buy the generic stuff and save the money for a better cpu or video card. better price performance ratio i think.
    • Any current video card is going to perform about equally well for almost everything (including the highest end games on the market to date, the hardware is WAY ahead of the software in that area).

      If your running linux or bsd or another OS which doesn't swap unless it has to, then there is a VERY big impact in memory. With a system like windows where you have swapping and vm going on your bottlenecked at the harddrive and memory performance isn't going to impact you so much.

      In a linux system your cpu load
    • I/O performance:

      The disk is still the slowest part of your system (well, after the network and external devices). Fast RAM is nice, but only after your data has been loaded from disk into memory! So the biggest boost in performance visible to the user would be a faster disk -- try a 10k rpm SATA drive for your OS/games/apps, and larger/cheaper 7200 rpm drives for data storage.

  • TwinMOS (Score:4, Informative)

    by stimpleton ( 732392 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @10:26PM (#9713541)

    Always nice to have a personal verification on the products you purchase.
    This about TwinMos from overclockers NZ [overclockers.co.nz]:

    "Up on closer inspection, we found out that the TwinMOS's PCB is made by Tripod Technology. I've been to the Tripod plant in Taiwan and was pleasantly surprised by their workers self-discipline and how organised the plant was."
  • ...is here [demon.nl] (until the real site is back). Have fun.

  • and now (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anubis350 ( 772791 ) on Friday July 16, 2004 @12:26AM (#9713995)
    These guys have rounded up almost every memory module out there and hammered them

    and now they're being hammered....

  • More info, please (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dargaud ( 518470 ) <slashdot2@nOSpaM.gdargaud.net> on Friday July 16, 2004 @03:45AM (#9714500) Homepage
    I have never been able to find a good explaination on PC memories. What are the timings, latencies, what are the numbers on their labels, etc... PC133 ? 4000 ? I put PCs together and usually stay with the recommanded motherboard manufacturer's recommendations but I'm curious for more.

  • The same but different. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mollymoo ( 202721 ) on Friday July 16, 2004 @04:51AM (#9714650) Journal
    Would somebody care to explain to me how different sticks of RAM at the same frequency with the same timings can perform differently?

    I had presumed that the frequency and timings absolutely dictated the bandwidth and latency etc. For example, with CL2.5 RAM you have to wait 2.5 cycles after strobing the CAS line to get your data, so doesn't that operation take exactly the same ammount of time on every stick of CL2.5 RAM? Isn't the same true of every operation and therefore the overall performance? Why not? Do the modules themselves cache and pre-fetch data in the same way CPUs do?

    Note I'm only talking about sticks at the exact same frequency and timings - it's easy to understand how faster timings and higher frequencies improve performance.

  • Performance is all very good, but I'm a professional and what I care most about is reliability.
  • and since mushkin has always been my personal benchmark of excellence I have to say that they products selected for review were based on fanboy junk that is heavily advertised and hyped rather than products that professionals (such as the slashdot readership hopefully) would select, eg based PURELY on fitness for use, value for money, performance in the real world etc

    my 2p worth anyway.
  • I didn't RTFA completely, but from my scanning of it (the OCZ part at least), the reviewers seem like amateurs to me.

    FWIW I just got some "cheap", not-the-top-of-the-line, OCZ PC4200 3-4-4-8 "Performance" memory. Pretty close to the bottom of the OCZ line actually. It has shiny copper (elemental color) heat spreaders btw. My overclock goal was 266 MHz, the processor (P4 2.4C) isn't co-operating (won't overclock without dangerously high Vcore) though so I'm stuck around 262 MHz.

    OCZ memories does NOT acc

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