Memory

The Memory Modules That Kill Motherboards

Over the top memory brings nothing but grief

By Dan Frincu, Hardware Editor

4th of April 2007, 14:30 GMT

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As I have mentioned on several occasions, most memory manufacturers have the bad habit of making factory modifications such as overclocking and overvolting components to raise their level above the one available at other manufacturers on the market. And this solution has proven cheaper to build than by actually using high quality memory chips that are, apparently, more expensive and not so

wanted.

All is well, up until the point where you have to supply 2.4V to a memory module that would normally run on 1.8V. And it didn't pass a lot of time before somebody else noticed that, and the news came from NVIDIA and EVGA, which have stated that using high-speed memory modules that normally are being supported by the NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI core-logic's DDR2 memory controller, have actually proven that high voltage settings can cause damages to the chips.

The statement given out on EVGA's website says that: "NVIDIA has investigated end user reports of high performance DIMM failures on the NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI-based platforms. During this process we have been in close contact with DIMM manufacturers and the DRAM manufacturers they rely on to understand the failure scenario. By working with our community, we believe that the observed failure is a breakdown of the silicon in the DRAM caused by the prolonged application of 2.4V on the voltage rails of the DIMMs."

So this raises a big question mark as to whether or not a high end system is also stable and reliable on a long period of time given these facts. Even though JEDEC hasn't made official any memory frequencies above DDR2-800, NVIDIA's 680i SLI core-logic being the only one that supports memory modules up to 1200 MHz through the SLI-Ready Memory technology. So if you're making a new purchase, take heed of these details, they might prove of great use.

TAGS:

NVIDIA | EVGA | Memory | nForce 680i SLI

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