One of my less than 18 month old 2 gig Corsair Dominator DDR 2 800 ram modules went kaput where I had to send both back for warranty and now running on a single 2 gig stick 667 generic brand in effect losing dual channeling. Makes quite a bit of difference which is to be expected. Corsair 4 gig DDR 800 dual and the generic 2 gig DDR2 667 Anyways I'm not real happy with the corsair ram and hopefully I will get a warranty replacement in a week or two. I've been contemplating buying the below 2 sets x 4 = 8 gig of Kingston 1066 ram for around 250 bucks delivered. Any thoughts on this, wait for the Corsair ram or get this Kingston set as I do have a Win 7 64 bit install.
if moneys no prob might as well go with the kingston, but IMO i prefer OCZ and recommend them over the others.
Thanks firzen771, I think I'll get the Kingstons anyways even if I keep the Corsairs as spares. Will have a look around the place for info on OCZ. Moneys no prob as long as the wife doesn't find out.
Thanks tobacco, haven't ordered that Kingston ram from ebay as yet so will look at OCZ ram a bit more before deciding.
If you're still looking for RAM I recommend Mushkin. They have some of the best RAM and best customer service of anyone. I have been an OCZ user and I greatly prefer the Mushkin. The Kingstons would probably be my next choice for stability, but not speed. Buying RAM is somewhat of a crapshoot though. You have to find what is stable with your other hardware.
Thanks xxJackxx, don't think I've heard of Mushkin before? West Australia is a bit lacking in decent PC stores with a not so good selection of ram. My neighbour put a bid on that Kinsgton ram through his account but it was gone. We found what I wanted on New Egg then found out they don't ship here. I had a look around the local stores and ended up getting 8 gig of Geil ddr2 1066 from PLE which seems to running fine atm. $280. Don't know much about that brand either. Looking them up on the net has the usual story where some reckon top notch and others reckon elcrappo. Had to change some bios settings (not real cluey on those) from 5-5-5-15 to 6-6-6-18 for it to boot. SIW reports the ram as DDR2 800 so maybe I still need to do some bios settings but I ain't real confident of mucking around in there and things seem fast and stable so just might leave it as is.
LOL tobacco, yep have created a ram drive of 2 gig with the old 4 gig ram set where I've run an nLited XP VM from and does it fly. That was on my Win 7 32 bit install and will have to see if that RAM drive app works on 64 bit. Have allocated 3 gig of ram to my XP, Vista and Win 7 VM's ATM. Still learning the ins and outs of 64 bit but it's been OK-ish so far.
Hmmm, CPU and RAM scores have gone from 7.1 to 7.3 so maybe I've done something right or could be the better memory handling capabilties of 64 bit?
Didn't realize you were in West Australia. Sorry to hear you picked up GeIL RAM. I just got rid of 8GB of it because it wouldn't run at it's rated speed. Lots of BSODs with error code 0x00000124. Maybe you'll have better luck. They are based in Taiwan and their support isn't incredible. I guess considering your location you buy what you can get. I hope it works out for you. Mine was supposedly 4-4-4-12 and I had to go 6-6-6-18 before it was even close to stable at DDR2 800 speeds. I had to underclock it before it would run anything 3D. Things to keep in mind if you have problems.
Seems OK ATM, fingers crossed. If it does give me grief will definately have a look at that Mushkin ram "and be patient" in getting it. Am running from my Win 7 32 bit HD and had a look around for a ramdrive utility and I think I found the perfect one that even on 32 bit with 8 gig this ramdrive utility can use the 4 gig of ram that 32 bit can't touch.
Mushkin is a great brand, they've been around for a long time. My primary brand of choice is Crucial GSkill is another good one that I've used many times and never had problems with. Many years in the field have taught me to avoid Kingston. I prefer to go to the manufacturers site and run through their memory configuration utility..to select the exact part number of their RAM which is tested on and approved compatible with my exact hardware.
Just received an email from Corsair that they have received the ddr 2 800 modules and are checking them out. These Geil seem to be OK atm with CPU-Z showing they are running at 1068.6. I think the DRAM Frequency is read multiplied by two from CPU-Z's gui. Anyways things are fast and sweet as is and I'm gonna leave it at those bios settings and see how things pan out. Setting Sandboxie's storage folder on the ramdrive and also running an XP VM from there is certainly way faster than running from the hard drive.
I am also partial to crucial memory. Having had the opportunity to work with them, I have always appreciated thier warranty. One build was constantly BSOD'ing during install (all new machine, back in the athlon 1ghz days). My hunch was a bad spot in RAM. Memtest86 failed. I had 4 stix, and was not sure if I should even put the remaining 3 in the mobo for fear perhaps the PSU was over-jolting it. I called crucial, explained what I found and my worry about frying the other RAM. Crucials response: they are warrantied, they are brand new, here is a reference # saying we accept liability if the PSU fries them -- so try them. Turns out 2 of the stix were bad, 2 were not. That one event impressed me so that as long as Crucial memory is competitively priced, performs within acceptible margins of other memories, it is the one I trust from a service perspective. Muskin, never had a problem even with thier value ram. Corsair has been decent as well. Suprisingly I have purchased a lot of SuperTalent DDR ram, and had fabulous results. If you don't overclock or run the specs to the edge, it is likely though that just about any decent ram will perform -- decently. Sul.
