HYNIX MEMORY (NEED OPINIONS)

[Jonathan Daleo]

I've recently built my first computer, at the time I didn't know an awful lot about memory or what brand to get. So being on modest budget I went for the cheapest. It has the name HYNIX on it (512mb PC2100) And thinking that all RAM was the same I didn't hessitate to buy it.

Lately I've been reading forums here at SYSOPT, and from what I see there does seem to be a difference.

My computer seems to be working fine, but I'm now wondering would more expensive brand name RAM make a difference to the performance of my computer.

Any opinions would be great (good or bad)

Once again I have "HYNIX 512mb PC2100" :t

THANKS

[Ammok]

hynix are one of the major ram manufacturers, but ram is only one component of a system, you could have the most expensive memory and a cheap motherboard. The strength of any chain is its weakest link.

What is the rest of your system? Do you intend to overclock at all.? What is the primary use of the computer.? Give us a bit more info, plz, and remember that a lot of people here tweak their systems to the extreme, and this is not always necessary or noticeable to the ordinary user.:)

[x51out]

If your system is running fine and without odd issues, then you all should be well. I'd say that even with name-brand RAM there will be some bad sticks. Generic mite have a few more (%), but as long as they offer life-time warranty, you should be alright. Often, generic RAM doesn't overclock as well, but that is not always the case. The little RAM chips are made in batches and have corresponding numbers and depending on which batch # the RAM stick manufacturer bought and implemented onto a RAM stick, you can get great or good or mediocre quality from the same RAM stick manufacturer. Generally, Name-Brand RAM will have bought a higher quality RAM chip batch #, thereby paying more, then passing that cost onto the consumer. That doesn't mean that Generic RAM is bad, though usually not as good. But if you never put your RAM under stress (for whatever reason), you'd never know.;)

[Jonathan Daleo]

SYSTEM INFO

First of all I don't intend to overclock (be nice to have the option though) Secondly, I just use system for surfing, occasional gaming and Office 2000 apps.

WIN XP PRO

ECS K7S5A (Rev 3.1)

ATHLON XP 2000+ (1667mhz)

PNY NVIDIA GEFORCE 2 Ti (64MB DDR)

512mb PC2100 RAM (HYNIX)

Enermax 365Watt Dual Fan PSU

80GB WD Caviar

L.G DVD Player/CDRW Combo

Lucent Tech. V90/92 Modem

Fujitsu Siemens 17inch Monitor.

Floppy Drive


When you say HYNIX is a big manufacterer Does that mean its any good.

If I decided to overclock would it do the job well ?

Once again Thanks all

:t

[Ammok]

Your fine, and yes Hynix is "good" subject to what Jonathon posted.

have a look

http://www.hynix.com/eng/index.html

[Ammok]

ps overclocking will depend more on your cooling solution rather than your ram and each overclock is "personal" to the overall system that you have.The mother board and its subset are the major players in overclocking along with good cooling.

FMemory is a bit different, i got a 256mb Twinmos stick of pc2100, overclocks likes nobody's business, A 512mb stick of Twinmos pC3200 which won't go 2mhz above it's rating. But that is common in 512mb sticks from anyone.

Your ram will not stop you oc your cpu.

[paul0660]

Ammok, not much of that is right. Ram is as important as anything in overclocking. Right now Jon's ram is running at it's rated speed, 133 mhz. If he tries to increase fsb it might very well be the first thing to fail. His board, the K7S5A, does not adjust voltage so he is not going to have a heat issue, or, at least, one that requires a "solution".

Jonathan, if you want to overclock at all you need to flash with the "cheepoman" bios.....do a google and you will find it. The K7S5A isn't flexible without it, and barely is with it. No multiplier or voltage adjustment, but you might get 5-17 mhz increase in fsb. Not worth the trouble imo, but you would find out how good your ram is. For now, it is rated at 133mhz, and is running 133, so it is fine.

[Ammok]

b@ll@cks, to coin a phrase. My memory can't go above a couple of megs before it craps out, currently my processor, thanks to my new SLK800, is 144mhz above the 1.4ghz it is rated at.(fsb 147mhz) You don't need to clock the memory at all, however the subset in the mobo might complain. That does not mean you cant overclock the memory, which i can do excellently with my 256mb sticks, but overall the 512mb at synchronous fsb speed allows me knock seven bells of anything I was able to achieve with memory overclocking.

Now, giving you an opportunity to defend yourself, tell me how much you can overclock without cooling and how much performance gain you get without cooling, or be more specific as what "not much of that is right" you mean. I've been wrong before, but all of this is from my own experience.

So, COOLING is more important.:)

[embj]

Apparently ATI thinks it is good RAM because that is what they use on the Radeon 7000.

[Spire]

They may just think that it is cheap RAM.

They also aren't considering overclocking, since that would be done by the user.

[paul0660]

Gosh Ammok, I would like to meet you and REALLY convince you but........MY own experience:

IF you want to overclock only with multiplier, ram does not matter. But, as I said, if he tries to increase fsb to overclock, with the ram currently at its rated speed, the ram might fail. Since he is using a K7S5A, its fsb or nothing, so I would say the ram matters.........you said it did not.

Like I said, in Jon's case cooling is not going to matter, because he cannot raise voltage and the board is not going to allow for much fsb increase, so what ever he has now is going to work. Forgetting his case, and speaking generally, cooler is better, especially for longevity, but I still contend that lack of cooling is not what makes any but extreme overclocks (which yours, btw, is not) fail, unless one is running on the ragged edge (50C to 60C) already. You said it was vital. Perhaps in your case the old hsf was a REAL dog (maybe an orb?) or not properly installed. Your overclock (10% from your figures, I think) should have been possible with the stock AMD cooler. From my experience that is.


So those are our differences. Our similarity is that we have discovered that synch is where it is at, and big fsb numbers aren't necessarily. My 2100+ gives better performance at 13.5 x 166 synch than it did at 13.5 x 166 with memory @200 OR than it did at 11.5 x 188.

;)

[trouble]

Been using Hynix for 18 months or so now.Dont have any problems with it.It also runs for me at more aggresive settings,Cas latency and such.
:t

[Ammok]

Yeah, ok, but i did say each overclock is personal to the system, no two being the same. I can overclock fsb without any increase in ram speed whatsoever, but best performance is where ram and cpu are in synch, so perhaps your board don't allow you to decrease the the ram speed as you increase cpu fsb? I can overclock at 147 with ram running at 122mhz if I want, but no point. I am not speaking for those that are experienced overclockers, just for Jonathon who is a begginer, he would be better off watching his cpu temps than his memory, which to be sure of a good overclock, usually has to be samsung or the like.

The cpu i have ran at 47c to 56c on my old hs fan, and now runs 37c to 43c with my new one, on old set up could'nt get past 1500 but now very stable with 1544, which i am happy with as it is only air cooling. yes the old hs fan was poor.:)

Again for Jonathon if he has a 512mb stick I don't think it will overclock much.

[x51out]

He is talking about Memory on video cards, and mite or mite not be applicable to system RAM, but you'll get the point.
:In order to avoid talking about how we overclocked each card, we gave a table showing the maximum stable values, i.e. clock speed values at which the card successfully ran the benchmarks. Abit simply could not handle any higher frequencies, and the same goes for all other models with 4ns Hynix memory. This memory is known to overclock better than Samsung and mostly all series have the same overclockability. Similarly, Hynix is known to dissipate more heat than Samsung modules, so that Leadtek A250LE, thanks to its memory heatsinks, was more successful than other cards having this memory. Samsung modules are a different story altogether. In general, we can say that the 211 series is the best, which we noticed in other reviews as well. On the other hand, the 220 series is not particularly overclockable, while the 208 and especially the 205 series are somewhat better. The last few series of cards by Leadtek have the 211 series of Samsung memory, which makes these cards, combined with their memory heatsinks, fantastic overclockers.Bench-House Article (http://www.bench-house.com/article.php?oliver=0&sid=103&pop=DoP&form22=+Go%21+)

[Ammok]

I would agree that samsung definately has the best reviews of those i have seen, usuallly more expensive though. I was happy enough with my 256mb twinmos, would got to 142 fsb no problem, just the cpu overheated too much. So went from pc2100(three sticks) to pc3200(two sticks) to get the best out of the dual ddr feature of the asus mobo. Won't overclock much(ram) as i say but its currently well below the 400mhz it is rated at, and won't be pushed until I get 333mhz cpu, which might be a while yet.:(

[paul0660]

ammok, the 1700+ might and the 2100+ certainly will run at 333 with a slight voltage increase. They are a heck of a deal.