A Closer Look

For those who haven't seen bare memory without a heatspreader in a while, this is what it looks like. Only thing of note is that the PCB is black instead of the generic green used for many of these. At one point, it cost extra to change the color of the PCB. This begs the question whether Lexar is paying more for black or it is now just common practice for fabs to offer other colors for the same price. I am all ears if anyone in the PCB sales industry would like to share their wisdom in the comments section!


The Lexar Desktop Memory DDR-3200 is a single-rank design. This means all ICs are on the same side and considered a single large pool of memory by the CPU. Dual rank would make for two pools of data for the CPU memory controller to access at once. The benefit of single rank is that it puts less stress on the CPU memory controller. Doubling the IC density to 2 GB allows more data per bank to be accessed. In this instance, single rank is the best choice for memory that needs to be highly compatible across a wide range of different systems.


The ICs are Lexar-branded. Nothing else is known about the actual manufacture as the SPD data is blanked out as well. Generally speaking, the choices are Samsung, Micron, or SK Hynix. Other IC manufactures do exist, but I am not familiar with all brands, just the three big ones. This only matters if buying a second set at a later date. It is in fact impossible to confirm whether they are the same to avoid compatibility issues, however unlikely those may be.


The Lexar Desktop Memory DDR-3200 DIMM weighs in at 16 grams on the scale, which is as expected for a PCB with no heatspeader. It is 31 mm tall, which nicely avoids having to worry about the height restrictions of a lot of pre-built systems.