eBay DDR2 Memory Dumpster Diving

[MAC]

During the overclocking tests on the P5Q PRO, I quickly realized that my venerable OEM Micron PC2-5300 modules were no longer going to cut it. Achieving DDR2-1216 was great, but it really wasn't pushing these motherboards at all.

So it was time for an upgrade...Now I could just buy a PC2-9200 or PC2-9600 memory kit for under $100, and achieve some decent results, but there is zero fun in that!

Therefore, it was off to eBay (where I have bought all my memory kits during the last 4 years!) to find some diamonds in the rough.

And the pickings were good!

Just arrived this afternoon:

The Xtreem has Micron D9GMH chips.
The FireStix has Micron D9GKX chips.

The total for both kits was $80CDN shipped

Now it's time to test them out, I will keep you updated

[Tazer-[X]]

LoL serial number scratched off? Some pc geeks are theives to? omFgz

[MAC]

Originally Posted by Tazer-[X]

LoL serial number scratched off? Some pc geeks are theives to? omFgz

Force of habit

[jdrom17]

Pretty nice deals. Those kits probably sold for hundreds of dollars a couple months ago...

I'm going to assume you've removed the heatspreaders to ensure they are said chips?

[MAC]

Originally Posted by jdrom17

Pretty nice deals. Those kits probably sold for hundreds of dollars a couple months ago...

I'm going to assume you've removed the heatspreaders to ensure they are said chips?

Actually, I haven't...yet.

Can't bear the thought of ripping off an IC before getting a chance to test them.

However, the reason I picked these two kits is because there is zero ambiguity regarding what chips they are manufactured with.

FireStick FSX800D2B was only built with D9GKX (FSX800D2C was D9GMH)
Xtreem TXDD1024M800HC4 with silver heatspreaders was only built with D9GMH.

[lowfat]

I never found D9GMH to be all that good. I've had 4 different sets of the stuff and only one of them would do 600MHz. The rest didn't even come close. The Team Group PC2-6400 4-4-4-12 was the worst set I owned. Hopefully you have better results.  The even sadder thing is, that I paid $400USD for those damn sticks when they first hit the shelves.

[SKYMTL]

Trust me, MAC is the king of dumpster diving. Just look at those little OEM PC2-5300 modules move in his review...

[CanadaRox]

I've got a set of the Team sticks, and I can confirm that mine were the D9GMH (removed the heatspreaders). I never pushed them super far, but I was able to get them to run 3-3-3-8 with 2.3V at PC2-6400. I should take them back out as well as my Mushkin sticks (which are also D9GMH's) and see what I can do with them. And if you're interested the heatspreaders on the Team sticks is fairly easy to take off, just get a hairdryer and blow it on them for a few minutes, until the heatspreader is too hot to touch. Then just use a flat head screw driver to pry it off.

[MAC]

Originally Posted by lowfat

The Team Group PC2-6400 4-4-4-12 was the worst set I owned. Hopefully you have better results. The even sadder thing is, that I paid $400USD for those damn sticks when they first hit the shelves.

I'm not going to reveal anything right now, still climbing, but this summarizes my experience with the Team Group so far -->

EDIT:

Sorry for the delay, but the motherboard I am using is apparently over-reporting memory speeds by about...200Mhz+