Ram

Cobalt Katze · 03-08-2006, 01:53 PM

Okay, I'm looking to get an additional 1GB stick (DDR2) to pop into my box. Few questions though:

First off, is Corsair still considered the best when it comes to manufacturers?

Second off, do I really need one with a "heat spreader" considering that I don't overclock?

The variety of 1GB sticks is pretty astounding, but here's two search pages that I came up with on Newegg.

"Normal"
"XMS"

Can anyone recommend to me one in specific that I should go for? Price versus power is my main concern. Am I going to be fine getting a lower-priced model considering what I'll be using it for?

Thanks

Pirotess · 03-08-2006, 02:38 PM

Corsair is still a quality name but its no longer the hands down best RAM out there. Crucial, OCZ, Patriot and a handful of other manufacturers are all making outstanding RAM these days. Im personally am an OCZ fan these days but I was previously a Corsair fan and still would be if their higher end RAM didnt tend to be so much more expensive than everyone elses in general.

The *heat* not *head* spreaders are useful but you can live without them. They help quite a bit if you have good airflow in your machine and theoretically should extend the life of your RAM as heat is typically the biggest killer of electrical components over time. They work by wicking heat away from the memory chips. I really dont think the heat spreaders add that much to the cost of RAM so if in doubt I'd get RAM with them. Either way the most important aspect of RAM is making sure it can support nice tight timings in my opinion. There should be some other posts here where I linked an article on DFI Street that explains what timings are and what they mean to you.

Cobalt Katze · 03-08-2006, 03:20 PM

Woops, typo there on heat

Fixed it.

Thanks for the info~ I'll look around at prices on those other manufacturers.

Edit: Well here we go, some price/speed comparisons...

DDR2 533
Crucial - 95.50
OCZ - 78.44
Patriot - 73.50
Corsair - 85.99

DDR2 800
Crucial - 211.00
OCZ (667) - 119.44
Patriot - 120.85
Corsair - 160.00

Neatton · 03-08-2006, 03:54 PM

Yea I agree with Piro out of the list id go with OCZ they are currently my personal favorite. Again like Piro said get the lowest timing you can afford but dont go nuts unless your have a system thats just nuts

rabb1t · 03-08-2006, 03:57 PM

The important thing to note is "additional". Thus, your new / old ram will match speeds by the slower of the 2. More importantly (I believe) is that you should match the voltage. I think you could run into trouble if one say is rated at 2.6 and the other 2.75. I think it would be bad for the 2.6 ram to be running set at 2.75.

Neatton · 03-08-2006, 05:55 PM

The slower of the two is going to have the lower voltage and basically the under clocked stick would be fine so voltage wouldnt really be an issue. However good point that we didnt mention about the clock speeds thanks Rabi!

Pirotess · 03-09-2006, 12:52 AM

If you arent going to overclock theres really no reason to get anything other than DDR400 RAM in my opinion.

Neatton · 03-09-2006, 12:37 PM

If you have an Intel based motherboard that supports DDR2 then you can go higher then PC3200 Piro. You must be thinking if he had an AMD based motherboard that only supports DDR1.

Cobalt Katze · 03-09-2006, 01:38 PM

I ended up getting a pair of 512MB DDR2 533 from OCZ. That, along with a shiny new Soundblaster X-Fi Platinum, and I'd say that was birthday money well spent

Pirotess · 03-09-2006, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neatton

If you have an Intel based motherboard that supports DDR2 then you can go higher then PC3200 Piro. You must be thinking if he had an AMD based motherboard that only supports DDR1.

Aye that is indeed where Im coming from. His Rig listing only has his RAM listed as a gig of DDR so buying DDR2 RAM to mix in with DDR would likely render his DDR2 RAM into DDR if I remember correctly.