SUMMARY: Today we've taken a look at four different sets of Dual Channel DDR-500 kits from OCZ, Kingmax, Mushkin and TwinMOS. While DDR-II has hit the market it will be a long while yet before it fully takes over regular DDR memory. Read on as we compare the modules at 250MHz and as high as we could overclock them on our Intel test bed platform.
JEDEC Standard CL 3-4-4-8 (CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS) Performance range - 250MHz (DDR500, CL3) Double-data-rate architecture; two data transfers per clock cycle Bi-directional data strobe (DQS) Differential clock inputs (CK and CK#) DLL aligns DQ and DQS transition with CK transition Auto & self refresh capability (8192 Cycles / 64ms) Single 2.6V ±0.1V power supply Programmable Read latency 3(clock) Programmable Burst length (2, 4, 8) Programmable Burst type (Sequential & Interleave) Edge aligned data output, center aligned data input Serial presence detect with EEPROM PCB : Height (1,000 mil), double sided component
- The Modules
In recent years Kingmax Technology has made a name for itself in that it prefers to differ from the rest of the memory world by producing modules using the Tiny-BGA packaging technology. This has resulted in quite a bunch of great modules coming from Kingmax in the last year and a half. Today Kingmax is moving in on the overclocking market, while their Tiny-BGA is a great overclocker, there are even more impressive chips available.
For the first time ever, Kingmax has included a heat spreader on the Hardcore DDR-466 and DDR-500 modules in the TSOP-II packaging array. This is simply because of the heat generated by TSOP modules at high frequencies. The heat spreader is somewhat unique as there are no others like this on the market.
As stated earlier, Kingmax has put the TSOP-II modules on the market for two reasons. One, they cost less than BGA and two, they have great overclocking potential. Like OCZ, Kingmax has chosen Hynix modules as its overclocker of choice. The heatsink is attached simply with bind clips, no double sided tape which allows for even better contact with the thermal pad as there is no adhesive to resist the thermal transfer.
- Overclocking
The Kingmax modules came up second best in our overclocking tests.
While Kingmax specify only 2.6v (as this is the standard for DDR-400 modules) we put the memory at 2.9v which it handled perfectly. With this we managed 276MHz FSB using the SPD settings; this is by far a great overclock for the Kingmax memory considering the price which is generally much cheaper than OCZ and others in this range.
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