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Good RAM Vs. Bad RAM
- Thread starter Ipyro24
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Just buy ram with a gurantee to work in your Mac. Also get RAM with a lifetime warranty (which most have).
A good place to start is.
www.RamSeeker.com
It's a Ram price search engine specifically for Apple computers.
A good place to start is.
www.RamSeeker.com
It's a Ram price search engine specifically for Apple computers.
Samsung OEM and Crucial OEM RAM are both excellent choices w/o over paying. Don't cheap out by buying no-name RAM and end up regretting later. And don't believe in those life time warranty from companies you've never heard of, they'll say anything to make a sale.
Samsung 512MB = $89
Crucial 512MB = $94
Samsung 512MB = $89
Crucial 512MB = $94
I've personally purchased from almost every company listed at Ramseeker.com and have had absolutely no problems with there products be it generic or name brand.
DealRam (http://dealram.com/) is another place to compare prices that I like a lot.
In general, though, I've either bought generic from DMS (http://www.datamem.com/), or direct from Crucial (http://www.crucial.com/).
DMS treats Mac users properly, have been around for quite some time, have very good prices on generic RAM, and are good about honoring their lifetime warranties--for example, when some of the G4 firmware updates caused RAM issues, they replaced anything that had a problem. I've never bought a bum stick from them, either.
Crucial has near-generic prices (currently less than $20 more per 512MB stick), is a big company that's been in the business for a while, and they also have a lifetime warranty. My G5 is liking 2GB of RAM from them just fine.
OWC (http://macsales.com) is a Mac-centric shop that also carries reasonably priced RAM, and I've had very good experiences with them on other products.
In general, though, I've either bought generic from DMS (http://www.datamem.com/), or direct from Crucial (http://www.crucial.com/).
DMS treats Mac users properly, have been around for quite some time, have very good prices on generic RAM, and are good about honoring their lifetime warranties--for example, when some of the G4 firmware updates caused RAM issues, they replaced anything that had a problem. I've never bought a bum stick from them, either.
Crucial has near-generic prices (currently less than $20 more per 512MB stick), is a big company that's been in the business for a while, and they also have a lifetime warranty. My G5 is liking 2GB of RAM from them just fine.
OWC (http://macsales.com) is a Mac-centric shop that also carries reasonably priced RAM, and I've had very good experiences with them on other products.
www.pricewatch.com
If it goes in a computer and you can't find it here, then you've probably spelt it wrong.
Most vendors that list on this site have warrinties, so if you buy cheap RAM and it's bogas, they will just ship more out.
If it goes in a computer and you can't find it here, then you've probably spelt it wrong.
Most vendors that list on this site have warrinties, so if you buy cheap RAM and it's bogas, they will just ship more out.
The problem is not getting ram that meets the proper specs for the Ram in your machine. It's getting Ram that will work with OSX stringent standards. For that reason I would not buy Ram from anyone that doesn't sell it specifically for the model of Mac you have.
hmn....
the ram that ships with the G5 is what they call "bottom of the barrel" in the "acceptable" barrel of PC3200 RAM.
If you buy Kingston, Geil, Crucial, OZ, or one of several other name brand PC3200 RAMs, and you put it in your G5, along with the Apple RAM that came with it, you might get some problems with computer stability. I had to take out the apple RAM in mine, and suddenly all the problems stopped. I have used Kingston, Giel, and Crucial personally, and as long as you buy matched pairs (don't mix brands), anything from these companies will perform better than what apple puts into the G5 by default. I wish there had been an option of 0 MB on the apple website for "installed RAM," because right now I have 512 MB of apple PC3200 ram just sitting in the office, waiting for someone else to get a G5 that can add that memory to theirs. I can't use it.
Feeding lines like "may not meet OS X's stringent standards" is a bit silly, when apple themselves is cutting corners on several items. (my PC here has a 150 dollar ATI Radeon 9600 Pro with 128mb of memory that is running almost 100mhz faster, and with twice as much memory, than the one that shipped with my dual processor G5. The ONLY reason that the G5's 9600 only has 64mb of RAM is cost-cutting.
That's also the only reason that they didn't go ahead and put Crucial or Kingston into the memory slots.
The G5 is great, and i think mine's wonderful. Panther is great. Wonderful.
but the RAM that ships with this thing wasn't up to par when compared to the commercial RAM available, and the use of a crippled 150 dollar graphics card with an ADC connection that i don't even use on a 3000 dollar box is more than a little frustrating. The 9800 should have been standard issue on the dual processor machines. period. the 9800 Pro could have been the "upgrade" card for 100 dollars more.
The FX5200 is actually MUCH slower than the 2002's "mid-level" graphics cards. It shouldn't have even made the "options" list for a machine built on 64 bit and PCI-X.
MacBandit, the truth is that if you buy "mac-certified" ram, you're just getting lower quality or equal quality ram at much higher prices. I have filled our offices with non-mac-approved RAM for the last 4 years, and none of the machines ever had any trouble with it. In fact they usually like the name brand PC memory better. The G5 is the first one where i couldn't leave the original RAM in, though. I imagine it has something to do with the shaky nature of dual-channel RAM confugurations.
The ONLY issues in buying RAM are A.) proper type of ram, and B.) Good quality RAM.
Also, if you're in the world of DDR, you should look for CAS 2.0 or at absolute worst, CAS 2.5 RAM. Most mac-approved ram doesn't even mention this (very) performance-affecting detail.
Sometimes even generic RAM is good. Sometimes even expensive RAM is bad. Law of averages, though, the better the company making the RAM, the better chance it will work as expected, usually at better timings.
Does anyone know the memory timings of the RAM that apple ships in the G5?
My Crucial memory runs 2.4.4.2 on my PC at 400mhz without any trouble, but I am guessing that the G5 isn't set to run such aggressive timings....
In fact, i can run my PC's RAM up to 466mhz if i scale back the timings a bit...
the ram that ships with the G5 is what they call "bottom of the barrel" in the "acceptable" barrel of PC3200 RAM.
If you buy Kingston, Geil, Crucial, OZ, or one of several other name brand PC3200 RAMs, and you put it in your G5, along with the Apple RAM that came with it, you might get some problems with computer stability. I had to take out the apple RAM in mine, and suddenly all the problems stopped. I have used Kingston, Giel, and Crucial personally, and as long as you buy matched pairs (don't mix brands), anything from these companies will perform better than what apple puts into the G5 by default. I wish there had been an option of 0 MB on the apple website for "installed RAM," because right now I have 512 MB of apple PC3200 ram just sitting in the office, waiting for someone else to get a G5 that can add that memory to theirs. I can't use it.
Feeding lines like "may not meet OS X's stringent standards" is a bit silly, when apple themselves is cutting corners on several items. (my PC here has a 150 dollar ATI Radeon 9600 Pro with 128mb of memory that is running almost 100mhz faster, and with twice as much memory, than the one that shipped with my dual processor G5. The ONLY reason that the G5's 9600 only has 64mb of RAM is cost-cutting.
That's also the only reason that they didn't go ahead and put Crucial or Kingston into the memory slots.
The G5 is great, and i think mine's wonderful. Panther is great. Wonderful.
but the RAM that ships with this thing wasn't up to par when compared to the commercial RAM available, and the use of a crippled 150 dollar graphics card with an ADC connection that i don't even use on a 3000 dollar box is more than a little frustrating. The 9800 should have been standard issue on the dual processor machines. period. the 9800 Pro could have been the "upgrade" card for 100 dollars more.
The FX5200 is actually MUCH slower than the 2002's "mid-level" graphics cards. It shouldn't have even made the "options" list for a machine built on 64 bit and PCI-X.
MacBandit, the truth is that if you buy "mac-certified" ram, you're just getting lower quality or equal quality ram at much higher prices. I have filled our offices with non-mac-approved RAM for the last 4 years, and none of the machines ever had any trouble with it. In fact they usually like the name brand PC memory better. The G5 is the first one where i couldn't leave the original RAM in, though. I imagine it has something to do with the shaky nature of dual-channel RAM confugurations.
The ONLY issues in buying RAM are A.) proper type of ram, and B.) Good quality RAM.
Also, if you're in the world of DDR, you should look for CAS 2.0 or at absolute worst, CAS 2.5 RAM. Most mac-approved ram doesn't even mention this (very) performance-affecting detail.
Sometimes even generic RAM is good. Sometimes even expensive RAM is bad. Law of averages, though, the better the company making the RAM, the better chance it will work as expected, usually at better timings.
Does anyone know the memory timings of the RAM that apple ships in the G5?
My Crucial memory runs 2.4.4.2 on my PC at 400mhz without any trouble, but I am guessing that the G5 isn't set to run such aggressive timings....
In fact, i can run my PC's RAM up to 466mhz if i scale back the timings a bit...
I haven't found that to be true at all. The RAM I have purchased from these retailers advertising Apple compatibility has always been as cheap or cheaper then the RAM I could find anywhere else even cheap generic RAM at a PC only site.
I agree though it really doesn't matter if it's name brand or not. I've never had a problem with Generic RAM and on the same foot I have heard of problems with name brand.
Also I have had two Macs in the past that used hardware interleaving for the RAM and I have never had problems upgrading using RAM purchased from the sites I mentioned whether it be generic or not.
I swap my PC133 SDRAM between my PC and my old schools 500MHz G4 (use it on occasion.) Never had any problems.
RAM is RAM.
The reason I brought up buying from places who sell specifically for Macs is because of OSX. When OSX first came out there were tons of people that could not run it because of RAM modules not meeting the new requirements set down by Apple in OSX. When this happened a lot of people were trying to return there ram with there lifetime guarantees and the companies would test it and of course it would test good and would send it back. When this was all going down a few companies stepped forward and said they would take there RAM back if it did not work in your Mac for any reason. Those companies for the most part are listed at Ramseeker.com another one is Other World Computing. There are others that made this promise as well but I don't remember all of them. The point is there is a difference between a simple guarantee that it functions according to the seller and a guarantee that it will function period no questions asked.
Yes, I have and have. I had no problems with their memory or their service. Very good place I have gone back to for memory more then once and will continue to use them in the future.
don't buy ram from otherworld computing (macsales.com). i got two sticks, both of which were bad, ultimately went to crucial and haven't had a problem since.
Ram prices
I just bought a dual 1.8 and looking for 2 sticks of 512 mb ram. When I see the prices for PC 3200 400 it is just $ 56 per stick. When I choose a ram program which finds the best ram for your computer it always finds ram that is, per set of 2 sticks, above $ 200. What is up with that?
BTW what kind of ram does it really need, because Apple's site doesn't give all the answers. I see ram with ECC or ram that is non-ECC. Is there a difference?
I just bought a dual 1.8 and looking for 2 sticks of 512 mb ram. When I see the prices for PC 3200 400 it is just $ 56 per stick. When I choose a ram program which finds the best ram for your computer it always finds ram that is, per set of 2 sticks, above $ 200. What is up with that?
BTW what kind of ram does it really need, because Apple's site doesn't give all the answers. I see ram with ECC or ram that is non-ECC. Is there a difference?
Anyone tried Geil Golden Dragon SO-DIMM 512MB on PowerBooks? Got a sweet deal on a pair, but don't want to buy something I can't use... They even promise less heat and less power required than "normal" RAM due to the new mounting tecniques. 
What I've been looking for is a spec on the memory that ships with the PowerBook. Is it CL 2.5, or is it CL 2? Anyone?
Any feedback would be appreciated!
-KJ
What I've been looking for is a spec on the memory that ships with the PowerBook. Is it CL 2.5, or is it CL 2? Anyone?
Any feedback would be appreciated!
-KJ
Originally posted by jevel
Anyone tried Geil Golden Dragon SO-DIMM 512MB on PowerBooks? Got a sweet deal on a pair, but don't want to buy something I can't use... They even promise less heat and less power required than "normal" RAM due to the new mounting tecniques.
What I've been looking for is a spec on the memory that ships with the PowerBook. Is it CL 2.5, or is it CL 2? Anyone?
Any feedback would be appreciated!
-KJ
If I remember right 2.5 is the slower model is it not? Apple puts in typically what ever is cheapest and therefore most of the time it's the slower model. It really doesn't matter you can mix ram speeds. It will just run at the lower speed.
As for the Geil Ram the problem you may have with that is the Dimms used in the Powerbooks are half height. You can not use full height desktop Dimms. Therefore you need make sure whatever ram you get is designed to fit in a laptop.
Hmm... Sounds like Mac hardware operates quite different from the PCs I'm used to then. On PCs you'll most likely run into stability problems if you mix RAM sticks with different timing....
And what du you mean by half height? You sure you don't mean half size? The sticks I've found is actually almost the same height, but half the length.
-KJ
And what du you mean by half height? You sure you don't mean half size? The sticks I've found is actually almost the same height, but half the length.
-KJ
Originally posted by jevel
Hmm... Sounds like Mac hardware operates quite different from the PCs I'm used to then. On PCs you'll most likely run into stability problems if you mix RAM sticks with different timing....
And what du you mean by half height? You sure you don't mean half size? The sticks I've found is actually almost the same height, but half the length.
-KJ
Different RAM cards have different heights. They have to be the same length or they wouldn't have the correct pin count.
I've not seen a problem on the Mac side even when mixing a different speed of PC100 with a different speed of PC133.
The biggest problem currently is with the G5s and seems to be poor quality ram not mixing well with high quality ram. There appears to be no rime nor reason to it.
Just buy your ram from a vendor that sells it for your machine specifically and you will be fine. If it doesn't fit or it doesn't work then you have a recourse you can take. If you just buy it as a piece of memory to fit your specs and you find out it doesn't fit or your machine doesn't run with it they don't have to take it back. It could be the RAM works fine when tested but doesn't function in your specific machine for which they never said it would or not they just guaranteed the RAM as being functional which it is.
Re: Re: Ram prices
Thanks for the reply! But does anyone knows what the difference is between ECC and non-ECC ram?! And why is there such an price difference between ram? I see a single stick of 512 ram PC3200 400mhz for 65 USD, and if I wanna buy two sticks for my dual g5 it costs over 200 USD.... The two sticks have exactly the same specs, as far as I can see
Thanks for the reply! But does anyone knows what the difference is between ECC and non-ECC ram?! And why is there such an price difference between ram? I see a single stick of 512 ram PC3200 400mhz for 65 USD, and if I wanna buy two sticks for my dual g5 it costs over 200 USD.... The two sticks have exactly the same specs, as far as I can see