Crucial vs Newegg vs OWC vs 1-800-4MEMORY

I'd go with the Crucial.

One bad stick in like 20 or so now, and they overnighted me a new one at no charge, no questions asked.

iGary said:

I'd go with the Crucial.

One bad stick in like 20 or so now, and they overnighted me a new one at no charge, no questions asked.

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Crucial (UK). I ordered a stick at around midnight on Thursday and it was in my hands at 9.15 on Saturday. Coolio.

amin said:

I've been happy buying from Crucial before as well. It just seems to be not worth it to go with Crucial this time if I can get the same exact RAM Apple sells for 40% less than Crucial charges, with a lifetime guarantee, from a reputable online seller.

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Try it and let us all know!

I've gone with Newegg in the past, but never bought Laptop RAM from them, so who knows. Never had a problem with them, even with returns, plus their quick shipping. And I find Apple's aren't as picky as people say. At those prices, I might have gone with the OWC stuff. They have decent prices and good service too. But if you wanted the better stuff, and got a good deal at Newegg, I'd say you did alright. It's only $20 more, so you may have gotten the better deal if it truly is higher quality.

I think you made the right choice, and you'll know right away whether you did ok or not.

Good research. You did the right thing. You are not being a lemming. I personally got my last 10 GBs of ram from OWC and not one bad stick.

I just brought 1GB of Crucial from newegg for $87 shipped. Should be great to have a G5 running 1.5GB.

When you guys say bad ram do you mean like it craps out on you or some of the memory chips are bad therefore it's never a full gig of ram or whatever or do you mean like it doesn't work even out of the box.

Also I was wondering what experiences people have had with Newegg, i know everyone on here prefers the Mac Guaranteed ram store, but frankly the extra savings of 60 or 70 bucks is almost 100% of the overall cost, for a 100 dollar stick.

iDM said:

When you guys say bad ram do you mean like it craps out on you or some of the memory chips are bad therefore it's never a full gig of ram or whatever or do you mean like it doesn't work even out of the box.

Also I was wondering what experiences people have had with Newegg, i know everyone on here prefers the Mac Guaranteed ram store, but frankly the extra savings of 60 or 70 bucks is almost 100% of the overall cost, for a 100 dollar stick.

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bad ram will either:

not boot
or
crash apps or the os

i just bought a 1gb stick from newegg for $108 and it has been in my powerbook for 1 whole day. At first i thought it was acting up on me because a few apps crashed unexpectedly. it's been fine today though. i ran hardware test on it and nothing was wrong. Newegg's rma process is a breeze so I'll give it about a week to see how it's working and if i'm still having issues, I'll zip it right back to them.

If nothing else, it's the ram's fault, not newegg's. newegg is solid.

Hands down crucial of course. But hey, some of us like to shop for better deals therefore I shop New Egg. Honest, easy to use, great prices, fast shipping, backs their products....new egg.
I bought kingston memory. Never had an issue.

I bought no-name cheap RAM from Outpost.com awhile back and it has been nothing but happiness

I prefer Newegg for price.

iDM said:

Also I was wondering what experiences people have had with Newegg, i know everyone on here prefers the Mac Guaranteed ram store, but frankly the extra savings of 60 or 70 bucks is almost 100% of the overall cost, for a 100 dollar stick.

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$93 GB stick of Patriot from Newegg is my latest purchase. Works great in my new iMac.

Bought RAM for a 12" PB recently, too- no problems.

Will continue to buy Newegg stuff.

I bought a 512 stick from Kahlon at a good price for my iBook. I do agree most people like Crucial and have good experiences with them.

amin said:

Can anyone confirm that the Samsung RAM I linked to above from Newegg is the same exact RAM Apple uses?

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IIRC, samsung is the manufacturer for the chips for many brands of ram. the stock chip i pulled out of my powerbook was branded hytec. Probably had samsung chips though. I'm sure you'll be fine with whatever you got.

I'd stick with Apple OEM RAM, you can get them on ebay from people who've upgraded pretty cheap. I recently bought 512mb for my new iMac G5 from Crucial and got an immediate kernel panic when I booted. I then sent it in and exchanged it, and guess what? Same thing again! It was a Samsung stick, identical to what came with the iMac (other than the Crucial sticker), but still caused random kernel panics. My guess is they buy the ones that don't meet Apple's QC. OSX is very selective with it's memory.

I'd get non-apple from crucial or new egg before i'd buy ram from ebay. Whilist I am certain there are many who are problem free. If you have the slightest problem what will that ebay seller do for you in terms of warranty?

I'm curious of one thing: How are you getting that price at 18004memory.com? I see pricing more like $175 for PB memory.

Second, about your questions. Personally I'd have gone with the cheapest RAM especially if it's guaranteed to work (ie the 18004memory stuff). But based on what you did, I don't think you'll have any trouble. I personally wouldn't go buy memory blindly at newegg since it could quite likely be incompatible. But if you had a model number in hand, I think you'll be fine.

SteveG4Cube said:

My guess is they buy the ones that don't meet Apple's QC. OSX is very selective with it's memory.

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That's totally not true. Crucial manufactures their own memory. The chips are Micron and they are generally very good quality.

My guess is you got unlucky twice.

amin said:

Here's the url: http://www.18004memory.com/cart/addcart.asp?Try=Yes&itemID=502372&itemTYPE=cat

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It's showing up $149 for me now. I'll keep an eye out though.

I bought a 1GB stick for my 15" pbook from newegg and have nothing but good things to say. $120 shipped.

everybodylikepi said:

I bought a 1GB stick for my 15" pbook from newegg and have nothing but good things to say. $120 shipped.

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Can you provide a link to the exact item you bought. I'm sure lots of memory at Newegg is compatible with Macs and it would be helpful to know from personal experience.