Memory/RAM

deathagent · Post by **deathagent** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 12:50 am

Does anyone know what the best brand of RAM you can buy is and what to stay away from? I'm gonna buy a stick of 512 doubling what i now have but have no clue what company i should get it from. So what's the highest quality brand of RAM?

madmag9999 · Post by **madmag9999** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 1:20 am

id say kingston is one of the highest ones out there. but i personaly go with oem brand memory as long as it has good reviews. just check the type ddr or sd and the fsb and the quality of it is. i got 2 512 sticks of ddr 2700 333mhz fsb oem and it works great.

deathagent · Post by **deathagent** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 1:30 am

Tnx! Thats actually the kind i need, altho i havnt seen it anywhere, but i have seen kingston and ive heard thats good so i prob. get one of the 2 unless sum1 else posts that there is sumthin better=P

TaranT · Post by **TaranT** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 2:29 am

A Kingston memory stick solved the problems I was having with one PC. And a Kingston SODIMM appears to have solved crashes by a laptop - only had it for a week & no problems so far <fingers crossed>.

My newest PC has a gig of Corsair DDR400 and has had no problems at all.

Crucial is another brand that I wouldn't hesitate to get if the price was right.

And you don't have to get the top-grade product. The Kingston and Corsair memory that I have is "value" rated (e.g. Kingston ValueRAM). Saves $$$ and it works.

The brands that I have had problems with are Seitek and Nanya.

eCoustics has PC memory listed by consumer rating:
http://www.ecoustics.com/Consumer/Revie ... ac_Memory/

bum · Post by **bum** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 6:38 am

if you can afford it and your motherboard suports it, your best option would be to get a pair of dual ddr 512 sticks (dual ddr allways comes in fancy packaging with two sticks)

deathagent · Post by **deathagent** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 7:41 am

Thanks All! I guess ill be looking for some kinston, corsair, crucial, or oem today^_^. Glad i didnt buy the pny or k-byte best buy had super-cheap

bum · Post by **bum** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 7:51 am

or try geil , their another good company and usual a bit cheaper than crucial or corsair

madmag9999 · Post by **madmag9999** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 3:16 pm

go to newegg.com and look for it there. newegg has great prices and customer service. just make sure to read reviews.

NicholasDWolfwood · Post by **NicholasDWolfwood** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 1:28 am

Let me recommend some companies:

GeiL
Corsair
Kingston
Samsung

My Kingston stick (512MB PC2100 DDR266) has lasted me nearly two years. Recently I've started getting RAM errors due to the applications trying to access memory that the kernel itself doesn't have access to.

When I ordered my new CPU/RAM/mobo a couple days ago, I got a GeiL Ultra Series 512MB PC3200 stick. It was (and still is) $124. The timings are 2-6-3-3 1T, which are superb for overclocking.

Zero1 · Post by **Zero1** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 1:08 pm

I second the vote for Kingston, Corsair is usually highly regarded also (may be getting some Corsair soon)

Be sure to check the motherboard manual to see what it supports! And take any limitations literally!!!

I'm speaking from personal experience, I've got a new Athlon64 motherboard that supports up to 3 sticks of RAM. Well I've got 3 sticks of RAM, but it won't boot. Why? Here's why:

RAM comes in Single and Double sided versions (Single side have memory chips on one side, I believe it's 8 chips per side, and Double sided one have chips on both sided (Total of 16))

Although my board supports 3 RAM sticks, (which in theory could be 6 sides in total) It only supports 3 sides at once.

So you can have a Double sided (DS) RAM in any socket.
Or you can have a DS and a Single Sided (SS) in any socket
Or you can have SS in all 3 sockets.
(In order to only have 3 sides)

Unfortunately for me, I bought 3x512MB RAM sticks, which are all DS. This means I can only safely use 1 Stick, because 2 or more would be exceeding the 3 side limit.

This is where me needing to grab some Corsair comes into the equation, I need some single sided 512MB sticks and a double sided 1GB stick.

The moral of this story:
Upgrading should be easy, beneficial and (if you are like me) fun. I've learnt to always read the manuals. Also download an application like Everest (formerly AIDA32) and/or SiSoft Sandra. These should give you information on modules installed so you can match up to them (Make a not of the timings, latencies and what not.)