SUMMARY: TwinMOS have been producing their Twister DDR-500 memory for around about a year now. Today we are checking out their still current flagship Dual Channel PC4000 memory modules and comparing performance in a range of different processor and memory speeds. Let's enter the storm and find out a little more!
JEDEC Standard Bandwidth(max):4.0GB/s Date Rate:500MHz Double Data Rate architecture Bi-directional data strobe (DQS) Different clock inputs (CK and /CK) MRS cycle with address key programs * CAS latency: CL2.5 * Burst length: 2, 4, 8 * Burst type: Sequential & Interleave 2 variations of refresh *Auto refresh & Self refresh Edge aligned data output, center aligned data input 2 banks to be operated simultaneously or independently Serial Presence Detect with EEPROM Package: TSOP, WLCSP
Features
The memory comes in a Dual Channel kit which guarantees 100% compatibility when operating under Dual Channel mode. The particular modules are also CAS 2.5 as opposed to CAS 3 - a lot of the cheaper DDR-500 memory we have tested in the pasts only worked at CAS 3 which affects performance slightly.
We found something interesting about the CAS settings but we will talk about that when we come to overclocking the modules in just a moment.
- The Packaging
The packaging isn’t the most exciting, it is simply a holder that sits beside each other with a sticker wrapped around it stating what the modules are and their size. It’s not that the TwinMOS packaging is boring, it’s more the fact that memory packaging period is boring.
- The Modules
The most noticeable thing about these modules is the gold-looking heat spreader. When you come to inserting the module you do run into a little bit of unexpected trouble, though, which we must report about. TwinMOS have used wafer level chip scale packaging (or WLCSP for short) on their memory, we last saw this in our Dual Channel DDR memory roundup a few months ago when GeIL were utilizing it on their latest Golden Dragon series of memory.
WLCSP was best explained in that article, here is a direct snip from it:
These particular modules use a packaging known as Wafer Level Chip Scale Packaging (WLCSP). This means that the particular chips are mounted directly to the PCB without any form of wiring which is seen on normal TSOP memory. The advantage over this form of packaging is that the modules produce less noise and run cooler…
As we mentioned, we ran into a bit of trouble. Due to the chips being smaller, TwinMOS decided to shrink the PCB. While this wouldn’t normally be a problem they decided to use the same size heat spreader as a normal sized module would use and for this reason you can see below it is an extremely tight fit into a memory slot when you are first installing them.
- Overclocking
The overclocking potential wasn’t the best on these modules only achieving a maximum overclock of 4MHz (or 8MHz DDR) over spec. What was interesting was as soon as you changed it to CAS 3 the modules wouldn’t boot 1MHz above DDR400. It’s quite a weird problem but some memory modules are very sensitive to the timings which prevent a decent overclock sometimes.
We will see how the overclock affects scores in just a moment, it was good to know the modules at least did what they were suppose to which can sometimes prove to be a trying task.
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