Dual Channel PC3200 Roundup- Crucial at 232MHz Cas2

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: joshg
OK time to quench the rumors.

Q'n'A with Shawn Baker (snippets of email conversations modified into Q/A format ):


Q: "[...] the chips on your modules were definitely Micron chips, then?"
A: "Yes they are Micron "

Q: "Also, I noticed you had double-sided memory (16x16MB instead of 8x32MB), and in your review you were able to hold tighter timings and higher speeds then the other reviews I have seen where they used single sided 8x32MB modules."
A: "Yes mine where double sided and usually single sided does give better results but I can't really explain it "



Hmm.. Okay, so these definitely were Micron chips on the memory. I can't really figure out why he got such good OC results whereas those using single sided modules could not go quite as high as he? Could it possibly be because he was running them @ 2.8v while the other reviews left theirs at default?

i dont think it's a voltage issue. every single review i have seen pushes the any RAM to atleast 2.8V when trying to acheive max OC

 

[joshg]

Well, I've only seen 1 other review of the Crucial PC3200 and they were using single sided and could not get it to go this high at these good of timings.

Anyone have links to other reviews where they had this problem?

 

[joshg]

Older reviews of the first engineering samples of Crucial/Micron PC3200:
http://www.hardavenue.com/reviews/crucialpc32001.shtml
http://www.iamnotageek.com/modules.php?s=&name=Reviews&rop=showcontent&id=53


From these reviews you can tell that the first modules that they produced were very poor in terms of performing outside of spec.



Got 235MHZ FSB @ SPD w/ 2.65V, but couldn't get good stable OC past 210MHz @ CL2.5 (still 2.65V, why??)
http://www.extremeoverclocking.com/reviews/memory/Crucial_PC3200_1.html

"We tried to do CAS 2 but no matter what voltage was applied, we could not get CAS 2 to run at 400MHz."

Just how much voltage did they try? Only 2.65? From other snippets of their review it seems they were a little "conservative" with the juice!



Able to obtain 250MHz FSB @ SPD, but looks like he never upped memory voltage:
http://www.subzerotech.com/index.php?module=sz_reviews_display&id=121



Got FSB up to 219MHZ @ CL3, but "CAS2 and 2.5 were not completely stable, with random blue screens appearing in and out of testing." Looks like they maxed voltage out @ 2.6V...
http://www.envynews.com/review.php?ID=482



Any others?

 

[Tab]

Damn I wish they put Geil in the mix, otherwise crucial is doing a great job!

 

[Lyfer]

Wow, 250mhz fsb @ spd.

Conclusion

What is the word of the day? Value, sat it with me?whether you are running at stock speeds and need that rock solid stability, or you are the casually enthused overclock Crucial has their head in the game. By providing modules that are in the realm of 25% less than competitors (mind you these are the really HARDCORE modules used to reach the really insane overclocks?as if a 1ghz FSB wasn?t impressive at SPD timings) and allowing for quite impressive performance Crucial has produced another winner; this time in the realm of high-speed DDR.

 

[JimMc]

It may be worth remembering that Crucial is a TTown sponsor and supplied the ram for the test. Entirely possible it was tested by Crucial and handpicked for the review. I'm inclined to try some anyway, perhaps their yields are just that good right now.