Crucial 512MB PC3200 DDR400 Memory

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Brian Kristensen
Kurtis
Crucial
Apr. 9, 2004

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A Closer Look

Unlike the Corsair memory we have reviewed, Crucial's memory does not come equipped with heat spreaders. Personally, I think heat spreaders are more of a cosmetic issue than anything else, especially if we are talking about modules that use stock clock speeds and timings (as opposed to PC3500 and above which are generally overclocked 200 MHz chips).

The Crucial PC3200 DIMMs have default timings of 3-3-3-8 at a recommended 2.6V. The module uses Micron MT16VDDT6464AG-40BC4 chips which run at DDR400 (200 MHz) speeds. They have a CAS Latency of 3 and a 5ns rating. A CL of 3 is rather conservative, especially when compared to the Corsair's PC3500 we recently reviewed which has a guaranteed CL of 2. However, Crucial memory is not targeted at hard-core overclockers or enthusiasts, and I am certain that the end user won't be able to tell the performance difference between CL 2, 2.5 or 3. Crucial's decision to use CAS 3 over 2.5 or 2 is most likely to ensure stability as the real world benefit of slightly lower timings is negligible in the bigger picture.

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Page 2 of 6

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: A Closer Look
Page 3: Overclocking / Test System
Page 4: SiSoft Sandra 04 / Aida32
Page 5: PCMark04 / ScienceMark2
Page 6: Super Pi / Conclusion

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6 User Comments

1 - Posted by A Person on April 10, 2004 - 1:50 am

I usually think of Crucial as the memory that you buy for your average PC. I was surprised to see it perform that well, even with reduced timings.

So does crucial have different quality memory? All I could determine from their website is that they make different speeds of "memory upgrades" :D from EDO and PC100 up to DDR2-533. I guess what I'm asking is, Corsair has the "Value Select" series and the XMS series. Does crucial have anything like that?

2 - Posted by Brian on April 10, 2004 - 11:21 am

All of Crucial's memory is pretty much the same. As far as I can tell, they don't have a higher/lower quality or speed lines of modules.

They have some information on their website which might be of interest to you. This is page four of their "Quality Counts" section:

http://www.crucial.com/library/quality_page4.asp

3 - Posted by Guest on April 10, 2004 - 12:19 pm

good review, but you didn't bench any games. will timings affect games more than synthetic benchmarks?

4 - Posted by Tulatin on April 10, 2004 - 6:58 pm

It also performs about the same as the ECC models.

5 - Posted by A Person on April 11, 2004 - 5:53 pm

wow, i never knew what "generic memory" actually meant. i guess i will never buy any of that stuff.

6 - Posted by OldCoot on May 9, 2004 - 1:29 am

I have an Asus P4P800, Intel 2.4C with a stick of the same 512 Mb Crucial PC 3200 memory.
The motherboard set to 'auto' detects the memory timing as 2.5-4-4-8.
Which timing is theoretically faster: the reviewed 3-3-3-8 or my detected 2.5-4-4-8?
I know that CAS 2.5 is faster than 3, but I don't know what effect the other numbers have on it.

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