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Kingston PC2700 1024MB SODIMM |
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Written by Mikhail Ivanenkov
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Wednesday, 20 June 2007 |
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Page 1 of 2
Thanks to Kingston for the product sample.
As a third year Digital Design student, I know how valuable a fast computer can be. I routinely work with large raster, vector, and 3D geometry images. Rendering animations can take days. If you think Windows XP is a resource hog, fire up any popular 3D modeler, up the polygon count, and sit back while your machine chokes trying to render a single row of pixels. Even games these days need gobs of RAM to run smoothly. Currently the sweet spot is between 512MB and 1GB; I would recommend the latter if you do lots of multitasking and/or work with memory intensive applications.
After dropping over a grand on an upgraded Dell Inspiron 8600 notebook a few months back (my "aging" 8200 was running a bit slow for my purposes), I realized I needed more memory. Upgrading RAM through a vendor is often a costly endeavour: you can literally save hundreds by opting for the cheapest available parts that can be replaced without voiding the warranty, reselling them online and then purchasing third party components. To that end, Kingston sent over a single 1GB PC2700 (DDR333) module, a capacity unheard of in the mobile market only a few years back.
This particular stick is built specifically for Dell Inspiron notebooks (hence the "KTD-INSP5150/1G" label on the sticker). To fit 1GB onto a single board, Kingston used a total of 16 small modules, each 64MB in capacity. The markings on the chips are "SEC 434 NLB3" (first row), "K4H510838B" (second row), and "AUG537XX" (third row). The RAM is rated at 166MHz DDR (333MHz effectively), i.e. DDR333 or PC2700. I'll be comparing it to a pair of 256MB Hynix sticks that came with the laptop originally. Although the capacities are different, both memory sets use a total of 16 modules at 64MB each. The specs of the notebook are:
- Dell Inpsiron 8600
- 1.6GHz P4-M (Dothan)
- 15.4" Widescreen (1680x1050 Resolution)
- ATi Radeon Mobility 9600XT
- 512MB (2x 256MB) Hynix PC2700
- 1024MB Kingston PC2700
- Toshiba 80GB 16MB Cache HDD
- 24X CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive
For testing I used CPU-Z, PCMark04 Memory Suite, Sandra 2005 Memory Bandwidth Benchmark, Cachemem, and SuperPI. The results are as follows.
First off, as expected the memory runs at 166MHz DDR; unfortunately at a 3:5 ratio it's far from being synchronized with the FSB, meaning performance will be lower. This is how it is with nearly every notebook currently on the market. The timings are decent: 2.5-3-3-7 (better than typical Kingston ValueRAM anyway). Unlike a lot of Kingston's memory which use their own modules, this stick uses Samsung chips. They're also fairly "fresh" at week 53, 2004. The timings are slightly better at PC2100 at 2-3-3-6, but the performance decrease doesn't justify the change.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 20 June 2007 )
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