[mythtv-users] RAM differences, was: will this system cut it ?

Johnny jarpublic at gmail.com
Fri Mar 13 17:13:51 UTC 2009


On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 12:31 PM, Alex Butcher <mythlist at assursys.co.uk> wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Mar 2009, Brian Wood wrote:
>
>> On Thursday 12 March 2009 19:04:15 sonofzev at iinet.net.au wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I'll have a spare AMD 4200+ and either 2GB cheap RAM or 1GB good corsair
>>> RAM.. available soon..
>>
>> I'm wondering if there really is a difference between "cheap" and the
>> "name
>> brand" RAM, or are you just paying for marketing in the latter case?
>
> I've been buying Crucial's standard modules, and more recently Kingston
> Valueram without any problems. I don't overclock, and I pay attention to my
> motherboards' Qualified Vendor List. If I was into overclocking, I might pay
> more for the faster and fancier memory, but I don't think overclocking is
> value for money once one factors in the hassle of researching and sourcing
> the right steppings, cost of fancy heatsinks and memory and so on.
>

Whether overclocking is worth really depends on the chip. I
overclocked my core2 duo from 2.3 GHz to 3.2 GHz with the stock
heatsink, and standard $20 OCZ DDR2 800 RAM. It has been stable for a
few years now, and all I did was bump up the FSB speed in the BIOS.
However, overclocking a P4 would probably constitute a low value to
work/money situation.

As far as the high quality vs commodity RAM it is really just a
numbers game. In general there are usually not fundamental differences
between the performance of the RAM (assuming they have the same
specs). The commodity RAM just undergoes less stringent
testing/quality control. As a result they know they will have some
known higher failure rate and thus they can pick a price and warranty
that reflects that. It is basically a way for the chip fabs to
increase their yields and the distributors to hit different market
segments. The strategy is used in one form or another for virtually
all electronics. If you don't mind a higher probability of failure and
the possibility of doing an RMA then go with the cheaper stuff. If
having a lower probability of dealing with that stuff is worth an
extra $10 then go for it.


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