Kingston DDR2, Micron / Elpida chips, dual channel compatibility

Hello,

I have 1 stick of Kingston KVR533D2N4/512 DDR2 on an Asus M2NPV-MX, and
wanted to buy another one, to run them together in dual channel mode.
However, the stick I have is about 2 years old and uses Micron D9DCN CB-37E
chips. The new sticks in the shops use Elpida E5108AJBG chips.
Can anyone tell me with some certainty whether these will be compatible?
Their respective spec sheets both say "16M words x 8 bits x 4 banks, 60-ball
FBGA, 1.8V, 1KB page size, row A0-13, column A0-9, burst length 4/8, CL
4/5/6, refresh cycles: 8192/64ms" (in fact, I can't really find any
difference), but is that enough to ensure compatibility?

Thanks in advance!

Marc.

"me" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I have 1 stick of Kingston KVR533D2N4/512 DDR2 on an Asus M2NPV-MX, and
wanted to buy another one, to run them together in dual channel mode.
However, the stick I have is about 2 years old and uses Micron D9DCN
CB-37E
chips. The new sticks in the shops use Elpida E5108AJBG chips.
Can anyone tell me with some certainty whether these will be compatible?
Their respective spec sheets both say "16M words x 8 bits x 4 banks,
60-ball
FBGA, 1.8V, 1KB page size, row A0-13, column A0-9, burst length 4/8, CL
4/5/6, refresh cycles: 8192/64ms" (in fact, I can't really find any
difference), but is that enough to ensure compatibility?

Thanks in advance!

Marc.


OK, there is a widely held myth that dual channel requires identical chips.
Nope, you can mix and match chips, mix and match brands. What you can't
change is the specifications as far as geometry and timings goes. If you
found a non-kingston brand with same specifications, even that would work.

In any case, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Dual channel is a
gimmick at best, the performance does not improve significantly beyond the
performance improvement that you will get simply by adding MORE total RAM.
So in the highly unlikely event it didn't work in dual channel mode, run it
in single channel mode. -Dave

On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:58:40 -0400, "Dave"
wrote:


"me" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I have 1 stick of Kingston KVR533D2N4/512 DDR2 on an Asus M2NPV-MX, and
wanted to buy another one, to run them together in dual channel mode.
However, the stick I have is about 2 years old and uses Micron D9DCN
CB-37E
chips. The new sticks in the shops use Elpida E5108AJBG chips.
Can anyone tell me with some certainty whether these will be compatible?

They may work fine, assuming the bios correctly drops to the
slowest timings common to both of them. However, you have
encountered one common problem with Kingston memory, even
that without such a difference in age, that Kingston buys up
whatever chips they can get a deal on and their product may
change even when keeping the same part #.

I would seek another brand with the same chips before
seeking the same brand, but keeping in mind what I wrote
above you can try whatever is handy providing you buy from
someplace with a no hassle return policy.


Their respective spec sheets both say "16M words x 8 bits x 4 banks,
60-ball
FBGA, 1.8V, 1KB page size, row A0-13, column A0-9, burst length 4/8, CL
4/5/6, refresh cycles: 8192/64ms" (in fact, I can't really find any
difference), but is that enough to ensure compatibility?

No, compatibility includes whether their SPD PROM chip is
programmed with timings the bios can use in dual channel
mode. Sometimes if the motherboard has an old bios a newer
one will improve memory compatiblity.


OK, there is a widely held myth that dual channel requires identical chips.
Nope, you can mix and match chips, mix and match brands. What you can't
change is the specifications as far as geometry and timings goes. If you
found a non-kingston brand with same specifications, even that would work.

In any case, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Dual channel is a
gimmick at best, the performance does not improve significantly beyond the
performance improvement that you will get simply by adding MORE total RAM.
So in the highly unlikely event it didn't work in dual channel mode, run it
in single channel mode. -Dave

Dual channel is not a gimmick, there is a small performance
gain in having it but a larger one when doing anything
demanding of the integrated video like playing 3D games.
Granted integrated video isn't great for gaming in the first
place, but if one wants to add memory anyway on a board with
integrated video it only makes sense to go dual channel.

Having written that much, having 2 x 512MB modules for 1GB
total isn't much of an upgrade these days. Even though
memory was a bit cheaper a few months ago, relatively
speaking memory is still quite cheap so I would at least get
rid of the current 512MB module and buy a matched set of
either 2 x 1GB modules or 2 x 2GB modules, or at least buy
two single modules at the same time from the same place to
maximize the odds that even if they aren't a "kit" per se,
they are still identical modules.

For example here's some for $35 after rebate, about the
going rate now.
http://shop3.frys.com/product/593983...H:MAIN_RSLT_PG

however the most conservative course would be to buy modules
of the same brand and chips as on their qualified vendor
list (QVL), but frankly I usually ignore such lists as
seldom do I have a problem with Asus boards and standard
memory after they've released a few bios updates that
improve compatibility, unless one of the modules happened to
be defective which is the same situation with any
memory/mobo combo.
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...NPV-MX_QVL.zip

:-)

Thanks for replying. (and other people too, btw!)

"Dave" wrote in message ...
(...)
So in the highly unlikely event it didn't work in dual channel mode, run
it
in single channel mode. -Dave

That's why I wanted to be sure it would work in dual channel mode: if I
understand the M2NPV-MX manual correctly, there's no way to tell it to use
single or dual channel, you can only either use one memory stick in single
channel mode, or pairs in dual channel mode. I see no BIOS setting or
hardware switch to run 2 or 4 sticks in single channel mode.

Anyway, I'll just buy a stick and see how it goes. Btw, this is for a budget
computer my father uses for e-mail and Word and stuff. I only wanted to
upgrade it now because the price has dropped to 11 euros for a 512MB stick,
and the price for 256MB has already started to rise again, so the 512MB's
are probably near their lowest point, and I just thought it'd be silly not
to buy one at that price.

Regards,

Marc.

On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:45:02 +0200, "me"
wrote:

:-)

Thanks for replying. (and other people too, btw!)

"Dave" wrote in message ...
(...)
So in the highly unlikely event it didn't work in dual channel mode, run
it
in single channel mode. -Dave

That's why I wanted to be sure it would work in dual channel mode: if I
understand the M2NPV-MX manual correctly, there's no way to tell it to use
single or dual channel, you can only either use one memory stick in single
channel mode, or pairs in dual channel mode. I see no BIOS setting or
hardware switch to run 2 or 4 sticks in single channel mode.

If it can't run in dual channel mode due to some kind of
module incompatability, (assuming the modules are otherwise
capable of the required speed and timings the board can
run), OR if you put the two modules in the slots for the
same channel, it should run in single channel mode fine with
2, 3, or 4 modules.