Which make of DDR?

[encaser]

Hey all, I am considering getting some more DDR and noticed on sharkyextreme.com that they recommend Corsair XMS as the stuff of choice as it is good for overclocking and offers best bang for the buck - unfortunate term. However, it is the priciest over here and I was wondering what others go for, why and how they find it performance wise?
The last make I bought was Crucial (Lenny Henry voice get out of my head!) and have found it fine and half the price of Corsair XMS LL sticks. So is it really worth going for Corsair or, say, twice as much Crucial? Any opinions welcomed.

[Jeff]

I tried Corsair XMS memory for my latest PC, it didn't work and its taken me 4 months to get my money back (still not 100% sure the refund has one through). I'm now using Crucial in it, works great.

[Sinzer]

Twinmos is also quite good and very cheap. However, I did get a dodgy stick once, never had a problem with crucial.

[JohnG]

I've bought quite a lot of Crucial RAM recently and found it excellent and reasonable priced. It's great to be able to run the Belarc Advisor software and be 100% sure you are buying the right RAM

[JohnS]

I always use the oem Scan/ebuyer etc and dont seem to get any problems and it seems to overclock okay as well.

I've never tried the more expensive stuff but dont really see how it could be any better.

[Daneel]

Crucial. It is quality stuff. The other more expensive brands are generally aimed at the overclockers and IMO it's not worth the extra.

[Jeff]

Here is a 5% discount coupon for Crucial, should still work.

BBUKWEBPROMO

[Pulsar]

Hello

I have installed a matched pair of corsair xms 3200 ram. It is very fast, mine is running at 200 Mhz DDR fine, and it came with heat spreaders pre installed. I can't rate it high enough, buy it.

Rob

[petrolhead]

Crucial - need I say more

[mephistopheles]

I think it depends on the extent you want to overclock your system.

For HCPC, where you would want as silent a sytem as possible, overclocking would be counter-productive unless you were into water cooling or refrigeration technology. Something like Crucial, as has been suggested, is ideal.

The beauty of something like Corsair XMS is that (a) it has very aggressive timings pre-set in its SPD specs (serial presence detection) so you don't have to fiddle about in the BIOS setup, you just plug it in and go (which can cause some, usually non-ASUS Nforce2 boards not to POST - you have to use standard DDR to enter BIOS, then update BIOS to latest release before it will work), and (b) it is designed to be run 'overclocked'. For example, you can run an ASUS PCB Rev2 A7N8X at 220 MHz FSB with a 2600+ XP with Corsair XMS3500 C2 TwinX (set to Cass 2-3-3-6).

Unless your m/b is capable of running at the stock FSB speed of the Corsair in the first place, eg XMS2700 is designed to run at 166MHz (x2); XMS3200 is designed to run at 200Mhz (x2) etc, then there is no point spending the extra cash, because you can't make use of the speed potential. You also need to watch out for your m/b specs to ensure it can run higher spec memory properly. For example, the ASUS A7V8X can only run one bank of XMS3200 due to a limitation of the KT400 chipset, and if you were unfortunate enough to have a Barton core Athlon with a KT400 chipset you would be limited to a 166MHz (x2) FSB.

[nutcase_1uk]

I've never had a bad stick of Crucial or Samsung, which are the two brands I've bought over the years. I've watched people at work return stick after stick of generic RAM, mainly from ebuyer, but from other places as well. IMO it's not worth the hassle fro a pound or two more to go for a branded stick.

[encaser]

Thanks for all the replies chaps I think I'll stick with Crucial again.
Think I'll get two DDR3200 512mb sticks for plenty of table space. What I'm most interested in is ensuring smooth playback of MS (and others hopefully, a watershed...) HD releases, such as the Extreme Ed. T2 720p due out in June. From what I've read, a nice big cpu is paramount though due to all the software calculations. Still, hopefully MS or a third party will put out some hardware to be on the safe side- either that or a dvd player capable. Ooh, snoozing again
Thanks again.

[Kramer]

2X 256mb sticks of Twinmoss here running @ 206fsb (Turbo 1T CMD) for the last 5 months, om a KT333 chipset Epox mainboard.

Only £70 for both - recommended.

[Dubbing Mixer]

Touching wood!

I have an unholy mixture of Crucial, Samsung, Generic and Corsair. Don't overclock so I guess I'm not really stressing it, but no trouble with any of it.

[ReTrO]

I've used plenty of Crucial RAM and a bit of Kingston Value RAM, no problems with any of it.