Hierarchy of good RAM

Akasha · Post by **Akasha** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 4:46 am

Hey, guys, what's the order of RAM companies from best to worst? I know Mushkin is at the top, and Samsung is near the bottom (heh), but where do the others fall?

JMEaT · Post by **JMEaT** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 8:18 am

I'm partial to Crucial.

Warlock · Post by **Warlock** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 8:36 am

i use Corsair

De Rigueur · Post by **De Rigueur** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 9:30 am

I'm happy w/ my Kingston Hyperx.

Top Wop · Post by **Top Wop** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 10:39 am

The Kingston Hyper-X are a pritty good series and are nice for o/c.

Iceman · Post by **Iceman** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 11:59 am

IMO ...

1) Mushkin
2) Crucial, Corsair, Kingston
3) All others that I know of ...

Genghis · Post by **Genghis** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 12:07 pm

Isn't Samsung a primary memory manufacturer, and most other companes secondary? i.e., don't a lot of "good" memory makers use Samsung chips and stick their own labels on the product?

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 12:45 pm

Yeah - Samsung memory is found on many of the leading brands.

I'd say Corsair was the most respected memory maker of recent times.

Things to remember though - the RAS-CAS numbers of memory mean more than the name on the stick. SPD settings which are aggressive and headroom for pushing the RAM faster (FS

with the same CL speeds is a very strong reason to buy.

Akasha · Post by **Akasha** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 3:15 pm

Agreed, Mobius. I'm going to go with the mushkin, because someone partial to ATi told me about the HyperX, and an intel dude told me about mushkin

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 3:56 pm

I'm partial to Infineon, mainly because their memory performs over and beyond what its rated for. I once got a stick of their PC133 to run at 149MHz before I had stability issues....but I'm sure I could have gotten it higher if I had pulled out the SB Live and modem.

I'm running Corsair in my current system and I absolutely love it.

Kingston
Micron
Corsair
Infineon
Crucial

All good grands if you ask me.

Vindicator · Post by **Vindicator** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 4:27 pm

Heh, I ran 2 sticks of Crucial PC2100 at 166mhz for a month with only 2.7 volts. Ran like a charm.

I got it as high as 175 (iirc) before stability and sanity issues caused me to back off. I have 2 sticks of Corsair XMS now and they've been flawless since day one.

Honest Bob · Post by **Honest Bob** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 4:32 pm

I'm currently using Samsung ram. Havent had a problem with it. It dosent OC but I dont need it to either. Its probably a good budget ram.

Mr. Perfect · Post by **Mr. Perfect** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 8:21 pm

I'm using two pc2700 Hyper-X in dual channel mode. They have a very nice 2-2-2-5 timing on them.

Scorch · Post by **Scorch** » Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:18 am

Crucial, Corsair, Mushkin, Kingston are all good. Avoid anything else like the plague (although I have heard good things about other brands, I like to stay with the tried and true.)

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Wed Jan 21, 2004 5:45 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Mr. Perfect:
I'm using two pc2700 Hyper-X in dual channel mode. They have a very nice 2-2-2-5 timing on them.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thats Kingston IIRC.

Scorch: You forgot Micron. Micron makes some very good memory.

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Wed Jan 21, 2004 6:07 pm

What somebody hasn't mentioned is that the PCB design and build quality of the RAM is a highly contributing factor to memory performance. Great RAM chips won't work well on a poorly designed/built PCB.

I have no information about who makes the best PCBs, but given that all RAM comes from only about 4 or 5 (?) different fabs, it's a sure bet that the top makers of RAM sticks get speed-binned chips, and spend quite some time/money on designing high quality PCBs for them.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 11:54 am

The worst:

OCZ

Akasha · Post by **Akasha** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 12:23 pm

What does PCB stand for? Also, could someone explain to me the timing thing? Which units are they in? Nanoseconds? Do you add up each number? And what does 1T mean?

Scorch · Post by **Scorch** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 3:08 pm

MD: Micron makes Crucial, so Micron is in there, just with their higher quality name.

Akasha: PCB is Printed Circuit Board; basically the board that the chip are soldered to. Timing, if you mean CAS latency, is the time it takes the memory to respond, more or less, and lower is better. I believe it is in nanoseconds, but not positive. CAS 2 is the best, AFAIK. As for when people say 2-2-2-5, I have no idea what the other numbers mean, but CAS is the first one I think.

Delkian · Post by **Delkian** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 8:16 pm

Akasha: http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/memory_guide/4/