DDR3-2000+ Memory Kits - Fast but Flawed
by Rajinder Gill on July 8, 2009 12:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Memory
Final words
We had certainly hoped to provide a review with all of the latest DDR3-2000 6GB kits, but it was just not meant to be considering the failures encountered during testing. Based upon the frequencies and timings of the Elpida Hyper based modules from OCZ and Corsair, these kits offer nearly the same performance with voltage requirements favoring Corsair although this can be attributed to the variances in the kits we received.
We would love to recommend either one to any user who is fanatical about benchmarking or just having the best product in their system. Unfortunately, it is not something we can do based upon the current reliability issues. We accept that elevated voltage levels above 1.65V are out of potential warranty levels, even though Elpida designed the IC to scale with voltages up to 1.85V. However, the deterioration/failure of this particular IC seems to be far in excess of anything we have had in the labs for quite a while.
Based on our own experience the failures are not vendor specific as modules from all the major suppliers have died on us. We lost modules using as little as 1.50 VDimm, on five different Intel boards, an AMD AM3 board, and at various temperatures on the modules and IOH. These failures are not solely confined to a particular slot location, parts combination, or BIOS design, leaving little doubt that there is a quality assurance problem at Elplida. Whether that quality problem is based on a lack of proper screening, process controls, engineering design, or a combination of all three is something we may never know.
What we do know is that Corsair, OCZ, and others are honoring their warranties with Corsair now reaching the point of pulling their kits from the retail channel until these problems with Elpida are addressed. Whether other suppliers follow suit or not is something we are trying to verify at this point, although initial conversations indicate this might happen.
If you are shooting for world records, then there really is no other choice at present, it’s pretty much Elpida Hyper or bust when you look at top scores on the i7 platform on the Orb or HWbot. Of course, that does not matter if the kits fail on you during a benchmark run or are unavailable. We hear rumors that Samsung might have something in the pipeline shortly that will at least mimic the high bandwidth of the Elpida Hyper at low voltages. We hope that performance will come without the attendant reliability problems we are suffering with currently.
There is a glimmer of hope as a select few users seem to have a bit of luck and have had no failures at all, even after months of usage. The question is at $500 a pop for these particular kits, do you feel lucky enough to take the risk?
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justniz - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 - link
DONT BUY CORSAIR PRODUCTS.Their warranty is a scam and their customer support is insultingly useless.
I RMA'd $680 worth of memory that was advertised as fully covered with a lifetime waranty. Now they refuse to offer anything other than $90 worth of much lower performing memory. Basically I paid for a Ferrari under lifetime warranty and they will only offer a Daewoo as a replacement.
All emails to Corsair are either ignored or take days for a response which is mostly just an automated or canned reply that contains no information and is of no actual help. Their customer phone support takes ages to get through, then you speak to someone who hardly speaks English, is technically clueless, and has no authority to make any actual decisions.
Their phone and email system is designed to completely prevent you from getting to anyone that is actually empowered enough to help you.
Worst experience ever. I will never buy any Corsair products again.
My only recourse against them is to share my experience with you, the world, so that you won't make the same mistake I did.
DONT BUY CORSAIR PRODUCTS.
BlackDragon24 - Thursday, July 9, 2009 - link
I'm really glad you took the time to write this article Raja. I went thru two of the top end OCZ blade elpida kits in three days. First kit fried in the first hyperpi32M run only running 1.60 vdimm and 1600 memory speed. Second kit failed after three days while running only 1800mhz with 1.63 vdimm. Third set seems to be running like a champ so far (about 3 months), but I am afraid it won't last long.Luckily OCZ was a champ about the whole thing and took care of me very quickly. I would expect as much with $450 memory.
Hopefully if these fail they'll have a comparable replacement part.
bobsmith1492 - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
I would recommend graphing the test results vs. CAS value and clock speed in a 3D graph where CAS is one axis, clock speed is the other axis, and the vertical axis is the test results. That could be a good visual aid to the first block of numbers of test results.Other combinations, like processor clock and RAM clock might help also - of course the non-graphed variables would have to remain constant.
mataichi - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
I bought some Kingston HyperX T1, and they crapped out after a few weeks. I RMA'd them with Kingston and they said it would be about a month before they had any more in stock.Luckily they offered to refund the purchase price, so I took it.
kitfit1 - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
Once all the others come into line and "pull" their Elpida as well, the question then is, will they replace ALL the Elpida ram in the wild.As no one knows if they have suspect ram (until it dies), the ram company's should do a re-call in the same way that car company's have to do. Then they can replace it with whatever comes after Elpida.
navilor - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
According to Corsair:http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7...">http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7...
We have seen a number of reports across various forums about failures of modules (from Corsair as well as from other memory manufacturers) built with Elpida “Hyper” RAMs. Through lab testing, we have now been able to reproduce similar failures. We are continuing to test to determine the cause of these failures. Note that although a relatively small percentage of “Hyper” ICs appear to be affected, the rate of failure is not acceptable to Corsair or to our customers.
Due to these failures, we will no longer sell Hyper-based modules until the issue can be resolved. We have also have asked our retailers to return any modules they currently have on their shelves. Products impacted include TW3X4G1600C6GTF, TR3X6G1866C7GTF, TR3X6G2000C8GTF, TR3X3G2000C7GTF, and TR3X6G2000C7GTF. We are working on enhancing our manufacturing and testing process to be able to offer these parts again as soon as possible.
We continue to stand behind these modules 100% with our standard warranty, which can be found at http://www.corsair.com/warranty/default.aspx">http://www.corsair.com/warranty/default.aspx.
Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
I think most automobile recalls are due to safety issues more than anything else. We can hope that if there is no such recall here, that the lifetime warranty that OCZ and Corsair offer on these modules will be honored should they happen to fail for users in the future.regards
Raja
JonnyDough - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
The price/performance of these modules is so ludicrous that I find myself not even caring...Give me half a year and I'll leave your OC'd $5K+ system in the dust for half the price.
vol7ron - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
That's because you're not one of the enthusiasts the article was written for. In 6 months, you will not leave a $5K system in the dust for only $2.5K. That's guaranteed.Now, if you meant that you could beat a $5K 2009-07-08 system in 2010-01-08 with $2.5K, then that's not really saying anything. In fact, I'm not sure 6 months is enough time these days that it would go down 1/2 price, I would imagine it'd be about 3/4 price in that time and probably a year to turn around; mainly because the bubble for performance enhancement is about to burst.
Even to say if your statement was true, you could do the same today with half the price of a system 6 mo. prior.
I guess I'm writing so much about this because I have a problem with your statement in general; especially considering the facts made and context of the article, which you're arguably not the target audience for.
Dreamwalker - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
Just read at guru3d.comhttp://www.guru3d.com/news/corsair-pulls-dominator...">http://www.guru3d.com/news/corsair-pulls-dominator...