Value RAM Roundup: Computing On a Budget
by Wesley Fink on April 11, 2005 4:26 PM EST- Posted in
- Memory
The Memories
The first task in our look at Value RAM was to define Value RAM. With top memories selling for $250 to $400 (or even higher) for a 1GB kit, we decided that a price limit of $200 for a 1GB kit (2x512MB DIMMs) of DDR memory would be our cut-off. Admittedly, this excludes some good value Samsung TCCD kits from companies like PQI and Patriot, but these products are really just good buys and marketed by the companies as Performance memory.We requested Value RAM for our review from Corsair, Kingston, Mushkin, OCZ and Transcend as a representative cross-section of the memory industry. We asked these manufacturers to supply a 1GB kit (2x512MB) of a Value RAM product or products that sold on the web for less than $200. We asked them to supply whatever RAM they wished that met these criteria, which we would be comparing in performance to other Value RAM products in a memory roundup.
All the manufacturers supplied one or more samples for testing except Corsair. Corsair emailed us, stating that "Our policy is not to send Value Select parts for review for a variety of reasons. After a quick discussion here we decided to stick with that policy and sit this one out." When we asked for clarification, Corsair expressed concern that we would be testing performance and overclocking of their Value products when memory chips change frequently on these products. The concern is that the overclocking performance we would report in a roundup today might not be what a customer would get tomorrow because chips change frequently in value products. Corsair recommended that customers looking for overclocking and enthusiast level performance should purchase Corsair products that are geared to performance and overclocking, where results are consistent.
The Value RAM roundup resulted with seven memory pairs from four manufacturers.
| Manufacturer | Description (Memory Chips) |
Memory Speed | Rated Timings | Web Price (1GB) |
| Kingston | KVR400X64C25/512 (Kingston) |
400 DDR | 2.5-3-3 | $142 |
| Kingston | KVR400X64C3AK2/1G (Elpida) |
400 DDR | 3-3-3 | $100 ($91 on sale) |
| Mushkin | EM Series PC3200 (Unknown) |
400 DDR | 3-3-3 | $147 |
| OCZ | PC3200 Premier P/N OCZ4001024PDC-K (PSC) |
400 DDR | 2.5-3-3-7 | $121 |
| OCZ | PC3200 Value Series P/N OCZ4001024WV3DC-K (Winbond - Value VX) |
400 DDR | 2.5-3-3-7 | $115 |
| OCZ | PC3200 Gold P/N OCZ4001024ELDCGE-K (Winbond BH5) |
400 DDR | 2-2-2-5 | $195 |
| Transcend | JM366D643A-50 (JetRam) |
400 DDR | 2.5-3-3 | $100 |
The seven memories represent quite a range of choices in memory under $200 for a Gigabyte. First, we were pleasantly surprised that all of the memories except one now actually cost below $150 for a Gigabyte. That one memory, OCZ PC3200 Gold, will still interest many Value RAM buyers because it represents the revival of Winbond BH5 chips, which were discontinued from the market over 6 months ago. We are told that Winbond is manufacturing BH5 again from old dies, and we will be testing this Value RAM at the higher voltages possible on the DFI nForce4 motherboard.
The other big surprise is also from OCZ. We learned (when OCZ introduced their VX memory at DDR500 2-2-2 speed) that there would also be a Value Series version of the VX. What we did not expect was that the new "Value VX" would cost just $115 for a Gigabyte of memory. These are the same chips that were top-performers in a recent memory review. The Value Series uses unbinned chips, so performance is not guaranteed, but we were still anxious to see if this or the new Value BH5 might be the proverbial "silk purse from a sow's ear" for the cheap computer enthusiast. We all like to get something for nothing - or, at least, for very little money.
As you will see from the results, there were quite a few surprises in Value RAM performance. This includes a few very cheap but solid performers that will satisfy many users, and a couple of memories that are as mundane as we expect of Value RAM. For those of you looking for dynamite performance at cheap prices, we also found that silk purse amongst the Value RAM candidates.
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Wesley Fink - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
xsilver -PLEASE read my Final Words. I made a very clear distinction between Value RAM for normal motherboards and Value RAM for Mad Overcockers. If I take your approach then it assumes there are no overclockers who buy a cheap motherboard, or a DFI nF4 Ultra for $134, and use cheap ram they push to the limit. I assure you there are lots of overclockers who push cheap ram to the limits, and who are looking for some great overclocking RAM at a cheap price. YOUR definition of Value is just one of many and we talk about this in depth on page 2.
Most really cheap motherboards in the Value category have no adjustments at all for memory voltage, so I should logically only test at 2.5V or 2.6V using your approach. We are testing what this Value RAM can do with a consistent test bed.
As for the 6800 Ultra and DFI, they were ONLY used so we could compare results to many of the high-end RAM we have recently tested - to keep the test bed consistent. I can imagine the uproar if I had tested with a 6200 and then listed past results with our 6800 Ultra test bed. We are not suggesting a Value System USE a 6800 Ultra, it is merely to have a consistent test bed.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
#40 - You are correct about overhead with Super Pi, but since we use a consistent test platform to test memory the Super Pi results can be accurately compared with each other.Your approach to running Super Pi in a RAMdisk is interesting, and should remove some barriers to broader comparison of CPUs and platforms.
xsilver - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
cygniI've been reading anandtech since 1999
and from that time there have been very few instances where CLEAR errors have been made.... I am afraid though this is one of them. I was trying to make a point that it is dissapointing as it is the first review right after anand did his whole spiel about integrity of reviews
about corsair not co-operating... how about source the memory from somewhere else? newegg or other stores would be happy to oblige (they are a major sponsor... and you only need to borrow the ram)
its just sad when corsair smells that you're doing a roundup and they know they could possibly look bad, so therefore they decide not to submit anything for review
I mean imagine if there was a whole nvidia and ati shootout and one team know beforehand that they would lose... and they refuse to submit a card.... would people hear about if the card performs bad? or how companies are trying to do a shifty? people would be all over the forums spewing froth from their mouths!!!
I consider anandtech the best tech website out there and in efforts to making it better I offer constructive criticisms... I don't know where the "All these "anand must be embarrased" posts every time are getting FREAKING OLD""
is coming from but its the first that i've heard of it......
and I don't know how to make it any clearer but this was a VALUE roundup right? who in their right mind would spend craploads of money on a dfi nforce4 + 6800ultra and get VALUE ram? .... I'm not saying you can't use good hardware.... just dont push it to 3.4 damn volts!!!!!
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
#36 - On the AMD Athlon 64, there is no FSB since everything is derived from the HT bus. You are therfore correct that lowering the ram multiplier and running at DDR400 at a higher CPU speed makes little difference on the A64 platform. There are, however, two concerns with this approach:1) There is an Asynchronous Latency penalty, which can be tweaked somewhat on boards with better BIOS options like the DFI. It is not, hoever, the kind of asynchronous penalty you see on a FSB board like Intel.
2) RAM multipliers are usually limited. If you have a standard set of 400, 320, and 266 speeds, you could only achieve DDR400 speed at a CPU frequency of 250. Anything lower than that would be running the RAM at less than 400. Most A64 CPUs can't do 250 on air at stock multipliers (the low end ones can) so they will be running less than optimum ram speed. That's where you could lower CPU multipliers or use a board like the DFI with lots of intermediate RAM ratios.
In the end, overclocking on the AMD is a balancing act with more variables than the simpler FSB platforms. You are balancing LDT (the HyperTransport Multiplier which controls HT speed), CPU frequency, and RAM frequency to find the best mix for performance. You also have all the different memory controllers since they are on the CPU.
In my experience there are not any simple rules for this, except faster values usually perform better than slower on the same variable. In other words, the easiest way to consistently improve memory performance is 1:1 memory speed.
AnnihilatorX - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
Replying #29 Wesley FinkThat's exactly a Gold series but NOT value series.
Based on part number OCZ4001024WV3DC-K
http://www.atacom.com/program/print_html_new.cgi?&...
is the right one.
See the reply below
Replying #21 dvinnen
I asked some other people on other forums. I've post some info on anandtech forum
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...
highlandsun - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
Just a tiny point, I see this misperception all over - Super Pi is not a pure number crunching program. It writes huge sets of temporary files to disk and reads them back between loop iterations. A lot of people quote Super Pi times and assume they're all reasonably comparable measures of CPU+memory performance, but they're overlooking the fact that there's a significant chunk of I/O in there too, so disk type and filesystem state (fragmentation, etc.) will also impact the timing results.If you can install a ~128MB RAMdisk and run from there, then you can be sure that you're only measuring CPU+memory with Super Pi. (Then of course, the performance will depend on how good the RAMdisk's block memory move implementation is. But if you use the same version for all tests, you'll get consistent, comparable results.)
ChineseDemocracyGNR - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
It's been mentioned "if you don't overclock..."You don't need expensive RAM to overclock the Athlon 64. On this platform the memory is always running on a divider, there's no performance penalty from overclocking the processor by increasing the reference clock but keeping the memory happy at DDR400.
As for the $195 "Value" RAM, I wouldn't recommend it. Save $100 and get a more powerful video card or whatever else your system needs. This money could mean an upgrade from a GeForce 6200 to a 6600GT, or from a 6600GT to a X800XL; there's no RAM that makes up for that.
You can achieve the same overclock on your processor with DDR400 RAM that doesn't like to be overclocked!
I know this article was a lot of work, but I think it would be a good idea to have at least one other test platform. The DFI LP nF4 is known to be... "special" when it comes to memory compatibility. The results could be (and probably would be) very different on another board, like the more value-oriented nForce4 or K8T890 boards that would fit in better with this article. Heck, I think even the DFI NF4-DAGF would be a different story.
Cygni - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
xsilver1) ALL reviews work this way. You think Autoweek BUYS the cars they review? You think PC Gamer BUYS the games they review? Anandtech asked for samples, and was given them. Or they are given to AnandTech to promote the product. That is how hardware reviews / review sites WORK.
2) They were pushing the RAM to the absolute limits, which meant using voltages not available on most baords. Big deal! They also noted performance at each different speed setting, so even if your board doesnt have that voltage, they STILL had you covered.
All these "anand must be embarrased" posts every time are getting FREAKING OLD. If you HONESTLY think that, there is NO WAY you have been here for more than a few months. Let alone years.
Googer
RTFA, and RTFC. For the love of christ...
Googer - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
How can you do an article like this and NOT benchmark the KING of ALL Value RAM- Crucial?cryptonomicon - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
hmm I asked last review and I received I suppose...>> FINALLY << a comparison against BH5.. and by coincidence I'ts amazing that they are producing some, however it is just from those old dies lying around.as a side note, wth happened to kingston and mushkin. their stuff only hit 204mhz??? what a joke.
:spelling corrections:
"OCZ PC3200 Gold is sold as a 1 GB kit with two 412MB DIMMs at a price of about $195. "
-change to 512mb