News Corsair announces Athlon64 XMS memory

Corsair have released (sparse) details on a new XMS memory designed for use with Athlon64 machines:

Corsair is please to announce that we have another new module in our XMS module family. The CMX512RE-3200LL these parts are primarily for use on Athlon 64 FX motherboards that will be announced mid/end of September.

The snappily named CMX512RE-3200LL will currently set you back the princly sum of $165.

I'd like to tell you more, but that's you're lot - this is straight from the horses mouth and hasn't hit the Corsair website yet.

 

It is normal 64-bit DDR memory.

But now that the Athlon64 and Opteron have integerated memory controllers AMD will now start listing "Recommened Memory"

This memory will have been tested/validated by AMD, just like the recommended motherboards.

 

tested/validated overclocking ability?
Just curious...


And so does that mean that the Athlon64 approved memory won't be any faster, just approved by AMD?

 

i thought that the athlon64 memory is ECC am i correct?
And how does the athlon64 gets a bus of 800MHZ if its not dual memory?

 

The memory is tested at the approved standards, 266,333 and 400mhz.
Overclocking is at your own risk as always.

It doesn't mean that it's faster.
With the amount of testing we do, it does mean that it is probably the best, and would be more then likely better to overclock.

The Athlon 64 uses normal DDR the Opteron uses ECC Registered memory.

The memory controller is totaly seperate from the bus.
The bus is Hyper Transport, it runs at 800mhz and is all DDR.
Meaning it runs the same as a bus running at 1600mhz.
If the motherboard chipset connects using all 32 possible HT lines then your bandwidth is increased all the way up to 12800MB/s

As you can tell that is more than enough for both the processor to communicate with the motherboard, and even for the motherboard perephrials to communicate with memory without slowing down the processor.

In reality most Athlon64 boards will use less then 32 lines.
Giving possible bandwidths of: 12.8GB/s, 6.4GB/s 3.2GB/s
For 32, 16 and 8 HT lines at 800mhz

As more and more boards come out watch out for the number of HT lines they use, as it can go all the way down to only 2 lines.

 

did/does AMD test all memory on the market, or only memory from select AMD-friendly companies?

 

In reality there are only a few major manufactures of Dimm's
(The actual chips, not dimm boards)

For Athlon64 we will be testing more, Samsung, Micron, Infinium, and a few others.
We do detailed tests of the reference design boards.

The companies like Corsair, Kingston and others make "Value added boards" They either create enhacements to the design (As a price) or buy faster chips (Like CAS2) and sell them at a higher price.
For these "after market" companies there is the same testing, but not as detailed, due to the fact they contain many of the same parts as the reference design.

 

Is there any correlation of quality between DIMM manufacturer's (chip makers) that sell RAM and the and the other companies that assemble it to sell?

IOW, if RAMCo A makes DIMMs and sells RAM to consumers, is it likely to be any better than company B that buys DIMMS from someone and sells RAM?

 

Sometimes, yes.
Every Samsung Dimm I have ever bought, original or aftermarket has been rock solid.

Every original micron dimm I have purchases has been solid, but a few after market dimms were total crap.
(With the exact same chip)

Basicly aftermarket dimms can have much cheaper parts.

For example:
Less solder / less quality solder
Painted on resistors (rather then SMT type)
Poorly routed PCB's or not enough power filter capactiors.

Then again some are the exact opposite, provinging better parts then the OEM.

So just like always compare and review.
There will always be cheap, middle, and high end quality of parts.