X-bit labs

DDR500 Memory Roundup: Corsair, GeiL, Kingston, SimpleTech and Transcend (page 8)

Category: Memory

by Kirill "ALT-F13" Balalin

[ 04/09/2004 | 01:10 PM ]

Transcend DDR500

We took two DDR500 modules, 256MB each, coming as a kit:

2x256 kit Transcend DDR500

The plain polyethylene package with the sticker that informs you about the type and number of the modules contains two sticks wrapped into antistatic material. The modules are equipped with aluminum heatsinks of the traditional design (with two clips). The heatsinks are silver-colored and carry the Transcend and DDR500 logos.

The timings written in the SPD are normal: 3-8-4-4. This info is also mentioned on the heatsink sticker.

These modules also use D5 chips from Hynix:

The Transcend modules behaved abnormally during our tests, quite contrary to the Kingston and original Hynix memory that didn’t do well at overclocking. The Transcend memory was stable at …288MHz (!) in our first testbed (Vdimm = 2.85V and 3-8-4-4 timings). This is DDR576! After this fantastic result, we were thrilled to see the memory in our second testbed at a higher voltage. However, we were disappointed as the overclockability of the modules degenerated after 2.9V (figuring out what caused this weird situation, we checked the memory on both testbeds at 2.9, 3.0, 3.2 and 3.3V) and the Transcend modules only passed our tests at 280MHz.