[H]ardNews 5th Edition - Memory Edition

DDR2 Consolidation:

DigiTimes reports that since many of the smaller DRAM houses are heavily invested in DDR SDRAM production adoption of DDR2 is likely to force yet another round of consolidation.

According to Chang, most small to medium-size DRAM module houses and assembly companies have invested in equipment supporting small outline package (TSOP) for producing DDR DRAM modules. However, DDR2 DRAM does not utilize TSOP, so manufacturers must invest in equipment supporting ball grid array (BGA) technology to compete in the market. This is a large investment for these smaller players, Chang indicated.

Memory For Today's Computers:

Check out LegionHardware's Guide to Memory 2005. Which covers types of memory your likely to encounter today, delves into frequencies, timings and even offers a rudimentary memory capacity and configurations section.

Most users are unsure about the differences between the original DDR memory and the new DDR2 memory type. Most of the questions were “Which memory type is faster?”, “Can both DDR and DDR2 be used at the same time?” and of course “Which memory should I buy?”

GSkill F1-4400DSU2:

PC Modding Malaysia reviews that wonder alphanumeric naming the GSkill F1-4400DSU2-1GBFC. I don't even want to try to understand that naming convention.

G.SKILL Extreme series memory modules are very popular among overclockers all over the world. Previously their Extreme DDR PC4800 that was using the Samsung TCCD chipset is well known because it had been rated at DDR600 which is a dream module for every overclocker. However, Samsung has already announced to stop the production of TCCD chips not long ago, this would mean that the legend of TCCD will be history soon. Anyway, today we’ll look another highly overclockable memory module from G.SKILL; FC series which is using Samsung TCC5 which will replace TCCD.

OCZ EL DDR PC-3500 Gold GX:

TechPowerUp fires up 2 512MB sticks of OCZ's EL Dual Channel Gold Edition GX.

If you ask an overclocker "Best memory chips ever?" you will most probably get the reply "Winbond BH5". These chips from Winbond were THE overclocker memory around 2002/2003. They are known for running very tight timings and high clock speeds, if the voltage is right. Unfortunately Winbond stopped production some time in 2003 and supply of these chips was running dry pretty fast. Now Winbond is back with their BH5 UTT.

Corsair XMS2:

InsaneTek reviews yet another brilliant effort in brand name retention, the Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X1024-8000UL PC2-8000UL 1GB Dual Channel Kit. The mind boggling part is someone pulled a paycheck that named that one.

The pioneer to DDR2 was hard and continues to be hard. Perhaps the major reason behind that is because of the lacking performance on Intel's chipsets. DDR2 is far from lacking in performance. However, because there is still only one platform that supports DDR2, the demand or even the hype of DDR2 won't reach its maximum. Memory companies are finding ways to increase the DDR2 demand since DDR2 is the future, whether everyone likes it or not. With Intel's newest 955X chipset, overclocking DDR2 memory has reached a whole new level.

ECC 101:

Class has already started at Real World Technologies in fact it commenced back in 2003. But thats OK tardy slips aren't being handed out, the Hall Monitor graduated long ago. So catch up on Error Correcting Code Memory in Part One and Part Two: Myths and Realities.

Data in modern memory systems is largely stored in a binary format. The data storage is susceptible to corruption due to electronic noises. As a result, there is a need to design memory systems to locate and correct any errors that may occur while the data is stored in the memory system. In this article, we will cover some basic error detection, location and correction algorithms. We begin the discussion by focusing on the simplest form of memory error detection, parity memory protection scheme.