Samsung memory was the winner of our PC2700 roundup, and I have high hopes that the semiconductor giant can replicate this price/performance double whammy again. Samsung could swallow the rest of the companies in this roundup without even denting their profits. They dont bother with any gimmicks like Heatspreaders or even pretty stickers.
As you can see the modules uses K4H560838D-TCC4 chips. Now if you remember back to our XtremeDDR review I speculated that "D" stepping chips were inferior to C chips. I have since heard that the D designates a Die shrink. You will notice that all the performance brands (Corsair, OCZ, Mushkin and probably Geil) have shifted from using Samsung 6 months ago to using Winbond now. Something must be amis!?
Speed Checkpoint
Stable?
400MHz CAS 2.5
PASS
400MHz CAS 2 FASTEST
FAIL
433MHz CAS 2.5
PASS
433MHz CAS 2 FASTEST
FAIL
450MHz CAS 2.5
FAIL
450MHz CAS 2 FASTEST
FAIL
480MHz CAS 2.5
FAIL
480MHz CAS 2
FAIL
500MHz CAS 2 FASTEST
FAIL
500MHz CAS 2 TURBO
FAIL
Testing the Samsung was a most dissapointing experience. Crapping out at 400Mhz is simply rubbish, and although it does its rated speed, even at 2.7V it cannot do faster timings at any worthwhile speed. Shame on you Samsung! I hope that the next die shrink they impliment is done with a little more care. Yet again I have to give thanks to Shop4Memory for this sample!
