Best affordable ram

[Nubius]

IMO the best RAM makers are as follows

OCZ
Corsair
Kingston
Mushkin
possibly Giel

BUT, take note that the high performance RAM serves two purposes:

1. Bragging rights
2. And it's good for overclocking

So if you aren't needing either of those two items above then stick with a CL2.5 stick of valueRAM or one of the cheaper sets of high performance.

The high performance is made from higher quality chips and is better engineered. Sticks like the OCZ Platinum Rev2 are $278...that's pricey..BUT they can obtain speeds of 275+MHz or DDR550+ with some pretty good timings...they are pretty beastly sticks.

The point is you really don't need high performance if you aren't overclocking.

 

[bigdawgjts2663]

I would really go for the Corsair XMS you will see a speed increase! The colder your ram the faster, and that has a platnium heat spreader, which platnium dissipates heat the best. Good choice right there!

 

[Nubius]

The colder your ram the faster, and that has a platnium heat spreader,

That's not true. RAM stays pretty cool as it is unless you are overclocking with massive voltages. Other than that they don't get hot and they certainly don't run faster simply if they are colder. Also heatspreaders are pretty widely debated whether they actually cool the RAM down. TwinMOS used to make some of the best OC'ing RAM and they didn't use heatspreaders. So for the most part people are in agreeance that heatspreaders provide minimal heat dissipation.

 

[Leonidas]

also i doubt those spreaders are truly platinum being as platinum is quite an expensive metal last time i checked...

 

[neosteve]

If it where real platinum is would cost 200 to 400 $ more or even more.

They only call it platinum because it has the same color or its meant to show that it top of the range in its class like platinum is the best metal around.

So it will never be real platinum.

 

[The Merlin]

OMG this is the funniest ever post by bigdawg

And he already made up his mind on teh Mushkin guys, long before any of that other stuff, score one referral for the Merlin

 

[MasterJason]

Yea go for the Mushkin Good Brand and Good value for money.

 

[Apokalipse]

I would prefer Mushkin to the really high priced RAM, which barely makes a difference in performance

companies spend so much time making lower latencies when it makes the slightest difference at all. i've seen about a 5% increase maximum in benchmarks and other tests

I keep saying it, lower latency barely makes a difference, and yet people are convinced that it is so much better

you are far better off getting higher frequency RAM than lower latency. it is different to the CPU world, frequency makes a much bigger impact on the RAM world

I've seen many brands of RAM, who make good quality PC3500, PC3700, PC4000, PC4200 and even PC4400 and they end up being much better, yet they are not nearly as popular

companies like Corsair are getting away with selling you RAM at hundreds of dollars more with little difference