Samsung DDR vs. Other Brands

[Jza]

What is so special about the Samsung DDR PC2700 chips? It seems like a big deal that samsung chips are on samsung PCB. How does this true/original Samsung DDR compare w/ other competing brands such as Crucial/Mushkin? I've heard a lot of talk about Samsung DDR, but someone fill me in please.

 

[BuddyAtBzboyz]

Well it just seems that alot of people are getting very good overclocks with it and its pretty cheap too.

 

[CrazySaint]

Companies that put Samsung RAM on third-party PCBs sometimes use lower quality PCBs which limits the overclockability of the RAM. Crucial uses Micron chips (Crucial is owned by Micron) and they make very good RAM. I believe Mushkin uses Samsung chips, but they put them on a good PCB.

 

[Sunny129]

yup its a combination of good chips and good PCB. Samsung is obviously going to put their own chips on a good PCB. Mushkin has always been high quality memory, so if they are using Samsung chips for their DDR memory, then they are using them b/c they are high quality. Crucial uses Micron chips b/c they are also high quality chips. and Crucial makes sure that they are put on good PCB.

another brand that hasn't been mentioned yet is Corsair. i'm not quite sure what kind of chips or PCB they use in their DDR XMS memory, but they must be good quality b/c it is one of the best OCing memories out there.

i've been looking into DDR memory b/c i plan on getting a mobo that uses the new SIS648 chipset in the near future.

 

[CrazySaint]

Originally posted by: Sunny129
yup its a combination of good chips and good PCB. Samsung is obviously going to put their own chips on a good PCB. Mushkin has always been high quality memory, so if they are using Samsung chips for their DDR memory, then they are using them b/c they are high quality. Crucial uses Micron chips b/c they are also high quality chips. and Crucial makes sure that they are put on good PCB.

another brand that hasn't been mentioned yet is Corsair. i'm not quite sure what kind of chips or PCB they use in their DDR XMS memory, but they must be good quality b/c it is one of the best OCing memories out there.

i've been looking into DDR memory b/c i plan on getting a mobo that uses the new SIS648 chipset in the near future.

Crucial uses Micron chips because they're high quality and because Micron owns them Corsair uses Samsung chips.

 

[Technonut]

Corsair uses Samsung chips.

The XMS3200 Rev 2.1 uses Winbond rev B 6ns chips, which are supposed to be better OC'ing than the Samsung.

 

[Jza]

Samsung appears to be the lowest in cost among these brands. But it seems that finding a good Samsung stick of DDR is tricky.

 

[SP33Demon]

I've heard that you have to "burn in" your Samsung Ram before it will hit higher FSB speeds. Also, you want to get the "DTL" version, which is the 2nd revision after CTL. Third, I read in a review that OC'ing is better with TWO 256 MG sticks as opposed to one 512MG stick, not sure why though.

Can anyone confirm these as myths or facts?

 

[CrazySaint]

Originally posted by: SP33Demon
I've heard that you have to "burn in" your Samsung Ram before it will hit higher FSB speeds. Also, you want to get the "DTL" version, which is the 2nd revision after CTL. Third, I read in a review that OC'ing is better with TWO 256 MG sticks as opposed to one 512MG stick, not sure why though.

Can anyone confirm these as myths or facts?

Burning in your Samsung RAM - This is a topic of debate, some say you need to, others don't. Personally, I figure there's no reason not to.
DTL vs. CTL - Early results on the DTL chips are slightly mixed, but seem to indicate that they don't OC as high as the CTL chips.
1 stick vs. two - I can't think of any reason why two would be better for OC'ing than one, though it could have been specific to a certain motherboard model. I know that some motherboards, such as the EPoX 4G4A(I|+), OC better with a single stick of RAM (placed in DIMM slot 2).

 

[onza]

who makes infineon chip mem??

onza

 

[BuddyAtBzboyz]

Personally I would think that if you had 2 chips your would likely get a lower overclock due to the fact that they both have to be run at the same speed so the worse overclocker would limit the other one.

 

[Mikki]

I can verify that one stick of ddr does give you a significant performance gain over two sticks. I was not able to acheive a higher overclock, tho.

 

[gururu]

samsung is now pushing DDR400 at CL3. Corsair is pushing DDR400 at CL2.

i assume corsair is weeding out the non-CL2 sticks from batches of samsung or winbond.
since samsung refuses to specify at CL2, I imagine that the CL2 able sticks are few and far between.

CL3 sucks. Do you guys/gals think it would be too much of a risk to get some of that and shoot for CL2 (400MHz)?

 

[BuddyAtBzboyz]

"I can verify that one stick of ddr does give you a significant performance gain over two sticks"

Actually I have even heard that a way to increase your scores in benchmarks such as 3dmark 2001 se, is to remove as many components as you can including a second stick of ram in order to get better scores.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: BuddyAtBzboyz
"I can verify that one stick of ddr does give you a significant performance gain over two sticks"

Actually I have even heard that a way to increase your scores in benchmarks such as 3dmark 2001 se, is to remove as many components as you can including a second stick of ram in order to get better scores.

this is very true, removing you sound card, extra hard drives, TV tuner cards, and anything else that would clog up your PCI bus, cause more drivers to load, or take up system resources will increase your performance.

One stick of ram is much better for overclocking beacause you arent limiting yourself to the chip of lower yeild, this doesnt really matter if you dont have the memory at your disposal though...

 

[Mikki]

I am NOT disagreeing with you folks on this, just giving you some findings. At about the same time I was testing my one stick/two stick theory, I also disabled everything in my system except the bare essentials (raid, sound, lan, usb, everything), and it didn't affect my scores hardly at all. And if it doesn't affect scores, I can guarentee it's not gonna be noticeable. This is one case, and like I said, I don't neccessarily disagree, but......well, there ya go.