[zybar]

I am looking to add a few gigs of memory to improve performance, is there a particular brand that I should buy or stay away from?

I am looking at newegg.com and many of the vendors have good feedback:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Category=17&N=2010170147+1052408745+1052308477&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=147

Thanks,

George

[bpape]

Kingston is good RAM with a lifetime warranty and a reasonable price.  I don't use anything else.  The only exception was in my son's gaming box where we used Corsair with riduculous specs to be able to overclock it.

You don't need anything fancy like some of the higher priced stuff.  That is for speed demons, extreme gamers, overclockers, etc. 

Personally, I use www.mwave.com.  Great service, good selection, good prices.

Bryan

[Levi]

I am currently using Corsair which is very stable.  If it is an OEM computer, I will use Kingston, Samsung or Crucial.

Then you might want to put into consideration that it all depends on your system board.  Asus system board sometimes are picky as to which brand and chipset works, so I would check the manufacturer first. 

Other than that, newegg is a great place to buy.  If it doesn't work, it is also easy to return them.

[zybar]

I am currently using Corsair which is very stable.  If it is an OEM computer, I will use Kingston, Samsung or Crucial.

Then you might want to put into consideration that it all depends on your system board.  Asus system board sometimes are picky as to which brand and chipset works, so I would check the manufacturer first. 

Other than that, newegg is a great place to buy.  If it doesn't work, it is also easy to return them.

It is a Dell Dimension 9150.

George

[Levi]

Dell computers likes Kingston memory no doubt.

Your computer uses:

KTD-DM8400B/1G DDR2-667
KTD-DM8400B/2G DDR2-667

You are in luck, you can get them on newegg for less than $200 which I think is a good price.

I am currently using Corsair which is very stable.  If it is an OEM computer, I will use Kingston, Samsung or Crucial.

Then you might want to put into consideration that it all depends on your system board.  Asus system board sometimes are picky as to which brand and chipset works, so I would check the manufacturer first. 

Other than that, newegg is a great place to buy.  If it doesn't work, it is also easy to return them.

It is a Dell Dimension 9150.

George

[Tirade]

Corsair Value RAM is great. Kingston is also great, but for the price its hard to beat the Corsair. Dont take my word for it, read the reviews at Newegg

[ted_b]

George,
I use Corsair 1GB memory in my Dell minitower desktops and they work great.  Kingston is absolutely fine too.

It's frankly scary that you started this thread cuz I've been on HP (running a health check) and AllforMemory sites all morning trying to decide if more memory will put life back into my wife's unbelievably slow Compaq Presario 2100 notebook (1.6ghz, 192meg memory).  It takes minutes to load any program, and takes 10 seconds for any command to visualize and work, even copy or paste.  Now that she's done with her campaign and the State has given her a desktop pc to use in her Columbus office we assumed she'd have less use for the notebook.  Wrong!  The Columbus pc is really mostly internal (which her legislative assistant uses).  Her use of the thing has sky-rocketed, and it is a piece of crap.   Think maybe I will spend the $75 for a 512meg slot, then if all else fails buy a new Dell notebook and be done with it.

Sorry to hijack, just found it weird that pc memory was your thread!  Kingston or Corsair will do just fine.

[zybar]

Thanks guys.

I ordered 2GB of Kingston memory from Newegg.

George

[mca]

Pretty cool website Ted mentioned.

http://www.4allmemory.com/

[Porter]

I have historically bought most of my ram from Crucial.com, but the other suggestions on this thread are equally good.

[Rob Babcock]

Corsair is superb stuff, and Mushkin kicks ass, too.  Mushkin Black if you don't care about cost, otherwise buy Corsair Value Select and get 90% of the performance for a lot less.

[bpape]

Mushkin and the upper end Corsair are great - if you want/need to overclock.  They'll do things and allow higher speeds/fewer cycles between refresh, etc. than many of the others - if you need it.  Other than that, most machines won't make use of the extra speed as the bus will only feed and retrieve so fast and the cycles are locked in.  I guess that's my point.  Buy something reliable that is fast enough to deal with the refresh speeds the machine will be running.  Any more is kind of like buying a Porsche to drive a mile back and forth to the grocery store in a 25 MPH zone.   I'm all for a little buffer and not buying right up to the edge.  Things like Kingston and Corsair are tested to at least 15% over their rated specs.

As for reliability, the best are (IMO):

Kingston
Corsair
Micron (Crucial)

I've built dozens of custom PCs.  Some just for business/personal use.  Some for high performance apps(CAD, Graphic Design, HTPC, programming, etc.).  The only brand I've never, ever had a bad stick of was Kingston.  Not the value line, not the high end stuff - just the middle tier.  I have an old Pentium 1.6 that I use for a file server.  Has 512 MB of Kingston in it from the day it was built.  Have replaced the floppy, both CD drives, bypassed the onboard video because it went south, new hard disk - but the RAM is still chugging away after all those years.

Bryan

[Levi]

Congrats George in the purchase!  $175 looks good!

[Levi]

Hi all,

I agree with everyone as far as choosing with memory to use.

Here is what I am using on my DIY computer and on my OEM computer as an example.

Corsair Twin2X2048-8500C5 on EVGA N-Force 680i SLI system board. 
The systemboard can make use of even faster memory like the Corsair's top of the line XMS2 Domintor for extreme gaming or mutlimedia apps.


On the other hand, OEM computers would be overkill if you install high performance memory.
It is not practical and obvously can cost you more money for it's intended application.

[bpape]

Nice setup!  Are you running dual video boards with the SLI?

Bryan

[Levi]

Thanks Bryan.

I have two EVGA 76xx series for now.  It should be a good system eventually.

Nice setup!  Are you running dual video boards with the SLI?

Bryan

[Thump553]

Definately stick with one of the brand names suggested above.  Once (and one time only) I built a computer with generic memory and spent hours (spread out over several weeks) trying to figure out what was wrong with the computer (I was too inexperienced to think of memory testing).  Defective memory will drive you crazy because it manifests the defect differently each time, it seems like.

Personally, I'm a diehard Crucial (Micron) fan, because of their ironclad lifetime warranty.  I've returned memory to them years after I bought it when the receipt is long gone with absolutely no problem-they just look it up on their computer.  They will also cross-ship warranty replacements if you give them a credit card number as security.  Their prices (on the internet) are very reasonable and they have a nifty online program to see what memory you have and what you can use-without opening the hood of the computer.