Final Words
It has been many weeks since 865PE and 875P motherboards were released onto the market, and we can say without a doubt that there have been some growing pains. Luckily though motherboard manufacturers have been diligently working on their BIOSes and it shows; memory compatibility and performance is much better today than it was one to two months ago.
After countless hours of testing there is no doubt that Corsair LL (Low Latency) PC3200 modules are the fastest and most compatible DDR memory modules to pair with your 865PE or 875P motherboard (regular CAS2.0 Corsair modules are just as good as LL/TwinX modules). Initially we had the most problems with Corsair's modules, but thankfully motherboard manufacturers were able to come through with solid BIOS releases that remedied all of these issues.
While Corsair LL modules are certainly the best modules you can pair with an 865PE or 875P motherboard they are significantly more expensive than most other modules. Kingston HyperX or OCZ EL PC3200 modules are other excellent alternatives. However when it comes right down to it you can't beat Crucial in value. Since the difference between all five memory modules was very slim to begin with (the largest variance was 3% in one instance), Crucial's price advantage over Corsair is significant. In fact, buying two PC3200 Crucial modules is about 30% cheaper than buying two PC3200 Corsair LL modules (be it LL/TwinX or vanilla CAS2.0 modules).
Looking at our performance and compatibility test results in combination with Crucial's excellent prices its quite clear that Crucial PC3200 memory modules are the best bang-for-the-buck memory modules available for your 865PE or 875P motherboard.
Stay tuned as we take a more in depth look at the most popular 865PE and 875P
motherboards later this week.
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mrcaveman - Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - link
Great article. I set my watch by you guys. Most of my decisions about computer hardware is based on your very helpful articles. keep up the great work.Anonymous User - Sunday, August 17, 2003 - link
I noticed in your artical you use Hyper-x 3500. I purchased the Gigabyte 8KNXP and Hyper-x 3200, to my disappointment they are not compatible! Kingston has ignored all e-mails about this problem. I would not recommend any of their products if using this motherboard.Anonymous User - Friday, August 15, 2003 - link
At the moment looking for good memory for my Epox 4PCA3+ mainboard I purchased recently. Seems to be difficult to get the TwinX modules from Corsair (512 MB CL2) here in Holland, if you know a "cheap" supplier please post here...This article, this website very useful! In my favorites... YV
SoSolid - Tuesday, July 29, 2003 - link
This is a very useful article. Not only do we see just numbers indicating which manufacturer makes the most fastest memory but also in "final words" the author discusses some alternatives.Excellent!
shinerburke - Monday, July 21, 2003 - link
Why was Mushkin not included in this test? Also when will we see a similar test on the NForce2 boards?Dagger1011 - Friday, July 18, 2003 - link
How about twinmos? You only commented on the other three. In my country, only kingston and twinmos are available and unfortunately, hyperx is a lot more expensive than twinmos!Anonymous User - Sunday, July 13, 2003 - link
Well I'm just about to upgrade my PC and saw the TwinMOS package @ addonsonline.co.uk for £60. Sounds good for 512MB. I downloaded the CPU-Z program and checked the timings of my Crucial 256MB PC2100 DDR and to my suprise the CAS Latency is 2, RAStoCAS is 2, RAS Precharge is 2, and Cycle Time is 4???? is this not a bit fast???? OR is slower clocked memory able to run @ faster timings??Anonymous User - Saturday, July 12, 2003 - link
Further comment to the above...DDR-II is on the near horizon BUT will it be the answer for super-fast compatible memory?
New memory design, structure and packaging will probably require mew motherboards.(I envisage "teething problems" etc.)
Incompatibility will still probably reign!
Anonymous User - Saturday, July 12, 2003 - link
One wonders if these "compatabilty charts" still hold for larger sizes of memory like 2 off 512MB?What happens with greater than 1GB?
Are these REALLY new technologies or older DDR ones being "Officially Overclocked"?
viz ONE BIOS DOES NOT SUPPORT <2.5 CL
Memory with CL=2 are from CHOICE chips.
Memory with CL=2.5 seems to be the norm.
Thus memory with CL=3 are easily overclocked to CL=2.5.
Anonymous User - Sunday, July 6, 2003 - link
Interesting article.What does the graph show.
It has numbers at the end of the bars (e.g. 339.6) - what is it a measurement of.
Is a larger number better or worse?