Best brand of RAM to buy?

I am shopping for PC3200 DDR1 ram. My problem is, there are so many results I don't know enough about ram to know which is the best brand choice. Could anyone who knows ram check the following list?

Also, I heard that having too much ram is bad enough as too little because there is too much room for the pc to navigate its memory within. If I have 1.5 GB as opposed to just one, will that cause any problems?

So, out of these results, http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?minorcatid=105&subminorcatid=10&po=1&ps= what brand would be the best to buy?

 

I have found Micron Crucial to be high quality, with excellent
service and free telephone tech support if you have problems,
like "How to I put this thing in my computer?"

http://www.crucial.com/

I buy direct from their web site. Delivered to your door.

 

I've never heard of "too much memory to navigate in". The more you have the better. I'd go with corsair, crucial, any of those names.

 

If adding memory, I would pull the existing memory and match the exact same mfgr and model number, etc.

If removing the existing and adding larger capacity, then any reputable brand of the correct type should suffice.

 

Patriot, Corsair, Crucial...to name a few.

 

Ocz and Kingston are also good brands.

 

The 3 step Crucial Memory Advisor is a handy tool.

Crucial

Plenty of information and help on those pages.

 

Transcend, Corsair, OCZ are ones I would recommend. Kingmax is another one I would definitely recommend if it is available in your area.

 

I found Samsung chips on several brands.

 

Crucial and Kingston are the two I have used and both are still working after a number of years without issue.

 

Apart from brands of memory manufacturers, its also important to see the brands of memory chip used in the RAM, Infineon and Samsung are top notch manufacturers and have consistently produced high quality RAM, I still have my NEC manufactured ECC RAM from 1999 in use, I paid a hefty price for those but in the end, they have rewarded me with life.

 

Hello,
I likes Corsair and Kingstone. Furthermore, if you want, let's say 2GB RAM, then it's better to purchase 2x1GB or even 4x512MB than a single 2GB chip. You'll get better performance.
Mrk

 

I suppose the extra performance increase is due to the usage of Dual-channel technology? I do not think that the performance difference between single and dual channel is highly significant in most general uses, besides it depends on the PC whether it can even support the dual channel technology (for example, early AMD Athlon 64 processors were single channel only).

 

FireCat,
Thanks for explaining. I was having problems understanding Mrkvonic, how that would be better? But what do I know

 

You see, usually the RAM is accessed by the operating system and BIOS at the rate of 64 bits per second. With dual channel this is doubled to 128-bits per second, hereby theoretically allowing a greater amount of data to be processed per second. However, for the most part dual channel has only shown somewhat significant performance increases in RAM benchmarks, and very little actual gain in real-life applications.

For the dual channel technology to work with most motherboards out there, the RAM sticks need to be installed in pairs (i.e. either 2 or 4 sticks of the same brand of RAM in order for the technology to work properly, if you have only 1 or 3 sticks it may not work). Dual-Channel is an excellent marketing term because you can easily make lab tests that say it is significantly superior but the fact is that it is not all that much better.

Therefore, do not worry about this aspect and just buy as much RAM as you need.

 

Hello,
Firecat, fairly true. But gamers love to boast about such things ...
Forgive me.
Mrk

 

Hey,
Of course, avoid unbranded RAM goes without saying. My contrary question would be, what manufacturer should be avoided?

Is there any renown bad quality RAM manufacturer?

Thanks

 

Go for the lifetime warranty. I would guess that Corsair, Kingston, Crucial, and Simple all have lifetime warranties. I have bought through vendors, but I can't imagine the store offers lifetime replacement if the manufacturer doesn't.

With that in mind, I say buy the cheapest with the lifetime warranty.

Crucial has a nice software download, "Crucial memory configurator", or some such at their web page. Kingston also has a memory replacement compatibility routine. The advantage of crucial's is that it actually examined my system when I used it. When a board comes out, it is not tested for memory configurations that don't yet exist (duh!). when I used kingston's memory finder, it just went by what memory configs were offered with that board at time of purchase. Using that method my computer will only support half of the memory that crucial says that it can.

Is crucial wrong? Maybe. So, what? The memory is guaranteed to work or I can return it.

Any guess where I am going to buy my memory upgrade from? So, it's a little gamble, but not much of one.

-HandsOff

 

Not really, avoid brand names which you have never heard of and say that they are made in China or Hong Kong.

 

Hello,
I thought everything was made in China these days...
Mrk

 

Brands which you have never heard of, that also say that they are made in China or HK (For example Brand X that says Made in China). That isn't the same as say Transcend RAM which may be made in China (which is pretty reliable).

And I think even in unknown/noname/low quality brands there is a difference between the products that say Made in China and the ones that say Made in Taiwan (not referring to RAM sticks particularly). The Taiwan ones are IMO better.

 

I know that. I term them 'unbranded'. (It was the first sentence of my post)

My question is any branded manufacturer with a bad reputation that should be avoided. I don't think there are any judging from this topic.