Apple OEM RAM v. others

[percival504]

I don't want to start a war here, but can some of you give me your opinions on the quality of Apple RAM v. OWC, etc. RAM? I'm buying a new UMBP to replace my 2.93 Ghz UMBP. The 2.93 has 8GB RAM (which I purchased from OWC). I'm giving the 2.93 to my wife (whose Powerbook is showings signs of mortality). The point is, my wife is not opposed to me getting the new UMBP with 8GB already installed by Apple. But she doesn't need 8GB, so I could just swap the new computer's 4GB with the old computer's 8GB. But if the Apple RAM is better, I'd just as soon buy the Apple RAM.

Would the Apple RAM perform better than the OWC RAM? Whenever I do XBench, I get 203 for memory score. I see a lot of the new i7 and i5s getting 300+ Does anyone know whether there is a reason for that (other than that my RAM might just be bad)?

 

[Gorilla Power]

The OEM RAMs are just fine. They come from Hynix (Korea) or CSX (Germany). Since the frequency is the same with any other RAM that you could buy on the market to protect compatibility, you don't need to worry about them at all performance-wise.

 

[fluffyx]

OWC, (www.macsales.com) is our recommended source for RAM. We aren't their business partner, and we don't profit from recommending them.

They just sell high quality RAM at very good prices, with lifetime warranties.

Buying RAM from eBay or such and saving 15% is a terrible deal—RAM is very sensitive to damage. OWC is great!!

 

[Sefk]

Both brands are fine, but they are not from big brands like Corsair or Kingston. Nevertheless, if you don't do any overclocking, the quality of the memory is not that important as long as you don't buy some random no-name memory on ebay.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Apple OEM ram is a rip off that is what is boils down to.

 

[dusk007]

That is funny. It seems like nobody reads more than the title or the thread and posts some generic answer.

To answer your actual question. The Apple OEM RAM ain't better it is very likely a little worse. Use your old OWC.
Most of the memory performance depends on the controller rather than the RAM itself. Arrendale has worse latency but better bandwidth than C2D. In every benchmark that values bandwidth more than latency the i5 will get better memory scores.

Truth is latency is more important and real memory performance on Arrendale is even slightly worse than C2D. The Quadcore i7 offer much more performance but in 2 Core designs we will have to wait for Sandybridge to get decent memory performance.

Performance wise it really doesn't matter which RAM you take. At best there is something like a measurable difference. Usually the difference between differnent benchmark runs is bigger than the actual average diff.
It is only for stability/reliability reasons you shouldn't put in the cheapest noname RAM.

 

[percival504]

You rock! Thanks much.

That is funny. It seems like nobody reads more than the title or the thread and posts some generic answer.

To answer your actual question. The Apple OEM RAM ain't better it is very likely a little worse. Use your old OWC.
Most of the memory performance depends on the controller rather than the RAM itself. Arrendale has worse latency but better bandwidth than C2D. In every benchmark that values bandwidth more than latency the i5 will get better memory scores.

Truth is latency is more important and real memory performance on Arrendale is even slightly worse than C2D. The Quadcore i7 offer much more performance but in 2 Core designs we will have to wait for Sandybridge to get decent memory performance.

Performance wise it really doesn't matter which RAM you take. At best there is something like a measurable difference. Usually the difference between differnent benchmark runs is bigger than the actual average diff.
It is only for stability/reliability reasons you shouldn't put in the cheapest noname RAM.

NT

 

[EstrlM3]

"ain't"

 

[Wehrwolf]

The RAM from OWC is often from OEMs that supply Apple. I've gotten Nanya, Hynix, and Micron RAM from OWC in the past; these are all OEMs for Apple.

The only problem I've had with OWC is with some 2006 Mac Pro I ordered a while back. It may have been with the heatsinks, but those modules kept throwing ECC errors. Sent them back and got a refund. Dealing with OWC has always been hassle free in my experience.

 

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

I don't want to start a war here, but can some of you give me your opinions on the quality of Apple RAM v. OWC, etc. RAM? I'm buying a new UMBP to replace my 2.93 Ghz UMBP. The 2.93 has 8GB RAM (which I purchased from OWC). I'm giving the 2.93 to my wife (whose Powerbook is showings signs of mortality). The point is, my wife is not opposed to me getting the new UMBP with 8GB already installed by Apple. But she doesn't need 8GB, so I could just swap the new computer's 4GB with the old computer's 8GB. But if the Apple RAM is better, I'd just as soon buy the Apple RAM.

Would the Apple RAM perform better than the OWC RAM? Whenever I do XBench, I get 203 for memory score. I see a lot of the new i7 and i5s getting 300+ Does anyone know whether there is a reason for that (other than that my RAM might just be bad)?

I assume that these boards are spec'd with the same memory? Check the memory finder first. I have never noticed any problems with any brand of memory, as long as the specs were correct.