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Q: Number of SDRAMS on a chip, which is better?

S

syf3r

Senior member
I'm looking into buying a pair of 512Mb PC2100 sticks for a machine I'm going to build, and am looking at the
Corsair CM73SD512R 512MB Registered PC2100 ECC DDR DIMM CL 2.5, and
Crucial CT6472Y265 512Mb Registered PC2100 ECC DDR DIMM CL2.5.

My question is this... The Corsair stick shows "Built using eighteen 64M x 4 DDR SDRAMS, 8K refresh" and the Crucial stick says "64Meg x 72". What does the 64M x 4 signify as opposed to the 64Meg x 72? The motherboard I am looking at (Supermicro X5DAE) lists the Corsair stick as "9 x 2 sides 2 buffered chips", and the Crucial stick as "9 x 2 sides 3 Buffers". How does the number of buffers affect the performance of the chip? I'm assuming each buffer will slow the chip a bit, but are we talking noticeable numbers here?

Also, I have seen some lesser-name memory, also 512Mb, that is listed as 18 x 2 sides. Is it better for a 512Mb stick to be 9 x 2? I'm doing my own research on memory types but I figured I might as well post a q here as part of it. Thanks in advance for any help.

/syf3r
 
I usually prefer more memory per stick of ram, ie: 512 stick rather than a 256. But about number of chips on a stick I really don't know if there would be much difference, do you plan to do some serious overclocking with that or what?
 
I'm not sure exactly as to what all the stats mean that you gave, but typically a stick of memory either has either eight or sixteen chips. They could both be 512 MB, but one will have all 512MB stuck on one side while the other (higher quality) memory will have sixteen (eight on both side).

I'm not sure if that's what you're wondering, but there ya go. Most quality (Corsair, Crucial, Mushkin, etc) memory is double sided...especially the larger sizes like 512mb
 
No, I won't be overclocking this memory at all. I'm building an AV-editing rig, and am looking for as stable and robust a setup as possible. If there are subtle differences in performance based on the number/config of chips, I want to know so I can choose the best sticks. I'm leaning toward the corsair right now, although I did get a 15% email for crucial, and 3% ebates would make for a good price on some crucial sticks...

/syf3r
 
If you are not planning to overclock your system, then the Crucial RAM will suit you fine. Make sure that the RAM you buy will run at CAS2 (CL2) at the stock FSB speed that you want, that will provide the greatest performance (either 133 or 166 FSB)

As for which brand you buy, it doesn't really matter if you are staying at stock speeds. Therefore I would recommend Crucial. They are a well recognized brand with few problems. Corsair will only benfit you if you are OCing and running agressive memory timings.
 
18 chips * 4 = 72 🙂

64x4 is the arrangement of the memory cells and the density of the chips. Chips have to be mounted in multiples of 9 for Registered ECC memory (1 bit extra for every 8 memory bits).

This FAQ gives some information, I'm sure you can find even more if you look around a bit on other sites.

To summarize: the Crucial and Corsair modules are the same as far as the 64x4 or 72 part. I'm not sure what the buffers indicate, but Crucial's own site has a lot of things in their FAQ section and the rest of the support pages, which may explain.
 
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