RAM from OWC

As many of you know purchasing RAM from OWC is usually a great deal. They currently offer two different types of RAM, OWC and NuRAM, both include a lifetime warranty and the only difference is price. OWC is a very good price and NuRAM has an even better price. I just picked up a new MBP and wanted to up my RAM to 8GB and wanted to know if there is any other difference aside from price so I called them and got the official word.

OWC is a private label placed on major brand memory. The warranty is the same as NuRAM except if the OWC fails they will ship out a replacement while you return your bad RAM.

NuRAM is private labeled RAM from more generic, little known companies. If it fails you must return the RAM for inspection before a replacement goes out - meaning you are down for an extra 2-3 days.

Purchasing either will qualify you for a rebate when you return your existing RAM but the rebate is less than you can get from ebay. For example, 2x2GB of Apple RAM gets you about $25 rebate (as of today)

So that's the difference - you decide what works best for you and your budget. At the time of my order 8GB (2x4Gb sticks) was $126 for OWC and only $110 for NuRAM with $2 for shipping. I ordered the OWC

About a day after I posted this I saw another thread about OWC RAM which turned into a thread for reporting bad ram from OWC, both OWC brand and NuRam.

Sadly, I bought OWC brand and got a bad one. Tech support was very good at helping me diagnose the problem. In the end I did have to swap out and and the replacement has been in for a few weeks and works perfectly - sold my original 4 GB.

As for the OWC 'Advance Warranty' it worked fine. OWC sent me out a new set while I returned mine. They emailed me a UPS shipping label. The catch was that I had to give them my credit card number for security until the bad ram was returned.

Prices continue to drop and OWC is currently one of the more expensive places to buy. But the advanced warranty might be worth it. You can run on one stick of good RAM (OWC had me try this for a few hours as a test) while the replacement is in route. If you buy elsewhere you may need to keep the old ram just in case. Of course bad RAM usually goes bad immediately or after a few years, just like most electronics

j3yq said:

I'm looking to to do the same, upgrade to 8GBs.... I as well am going the OWC route.

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Reports over the past few weeks seem to confirm the bad batch is gone. So it is safe to come out of the water. I am a photographer that uses Photoshop CS5 which can be a RAm hog and the extra has already come in handy - see attached screen shot