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MBP memory -- Corsair vs. Kingston

Am3822

Am3822

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 16, 2006
424
0
Groningen, The Netherlands
I've been offered two 4GB upgrade kits for the current-revision MBP(15.4/2.4G/multitouch):

Corsair kit, P/N VSA4GSDSKIT667C4 (low latency?)

Kingston kit, P/N KTA-MB667K2/4G

I'm pretty sure this has been asked before (though I've searched for it and couldn't find it), but can someone tell me which of these two kits I should go for?
 
I can tell you through experience that either will work fine. I tend to usually go with Corsair though.

- js
 
I bought a 4GB kit from Crucial for my new MBP (2.4GHz Penryn) and it works great. I've also installed Crucial memory in my PowerMac. It's been in use since late 2004 without any issues.

I would recommend that you consider Crucial memory in you MBP.
 
Am3822 said:
Thanks.

Is there any place where I could find some head-to-head comparison between the two kits?
Click to expand...

As a matter of fact, we supplied both of these kits to Barefeats.com for testing, and the article appeared today http://barefeats.com/mbpp03.html

Capsule -- the Corsair CL4 latency RAM might be faster by 1% in real world application testing.

There was no measurable difference in performance between the CL5 kits from Kingston, Corsair, DMS and OWC -- that is just as we would expect, because it is the mac that sets the RAM bus speed, not the RAM.
 
Actually... what I found really interesting in this testing was that there was more of a measurable performance difference between Corsair's own CAS5 product and their CAS4... that said - our OWC Cas5 was actually, when looking at that small difference, a very relative bit faster than Corsair's CAS 5.
http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp03.html

One thing we did find in our own testing and CAS4 engineering process was that the Mira OEM DRAM that Corsair builds their CAS4 product with was slower than the Grade A DRAM die Elpida Major brand 800MHz DRAM on the same modules. The 'Grade A' is the prime cut of the wafer while OEM gets the outer portions typically... while it's not a substantial difference - still about 1% measurable in a couple real-world tests there between our Major based and the Corsair OEM based CAS 5 4GB kit testing.

Fun stuff. Very fun stuff indeed. :)
 
Truth be told, the main benefits come from having 4GB installed period.

Compared to even 2GB, some results are up to 3X faster with 4GB vs. 2GB. Typical is 20-40% benefit between 2GB and 4GB memory configs. And margin notably larger going from 1GB to 4GB.

all our Intel Mac testing which compares factory base config to various configs with additional OWC CAS5 memory installed can be found here:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/Macbook_Memory_Benchmarks

In many cases - upgrading a Mac you already have to 4GB will give better or at least equal performance vs. the latest model with just the factory base installed. As easy as memory is to install, still amazes me how many customers never upgrade their memory, but will buy new Macs with the base installed for 10-30X what the memory costs and without necessarily the performance they could have gotten from the Mac already owned.

anyway. :)
 
Thanks for the information, people. I know that having twice as much memory as before would cause a substantial speed-up, but I also thought that it'd be a good idea to check here which memory is preferable (there had been a thread about someone using Kingston valueram for their MBP and experiencing slower response, for example)
 
The real differences for brand in SDRAM...? Can't tell & feel... I'd just installed 4GB <mushkin in my MB 2.4GHz and used to have 4GB Kingston in my previous MB 2,2GHZ, can't tell & feel the difference.
 
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