RAM: High performance or Regular?

[yojitani]

Well, the good news is that I've found a good deal on a MBP on ebay and it is on its way. The not-so-great news is that it only has a gig of ram and will need upgrading immediately. It's been a while since I've done this and prices have gone down a lot. With prices so low, I'm seeing the high performance ram within my price range, but I'm wondering what the difference is between high performance and regular.

Right now I'm looking at Omni ram. They have the Optival and Hyperperformance, but I can't really understand what difference it will make to my computer. It won't run any faster, right? But there must be a reason that one is priced $15 above the other. What is it??

thanks!

 

[darrenscerri]

The only thing that can makes the High Performance faster despite the clock is the latency which provides faster access times.

 

[yojitani]

The only thing that can makes the High Performance faster despite the clock is the latency which provides faster access times.

Noticeably faster?

 

[darrenscerri]

Noticeably faster?

You would definitely not notice it. The time difference in the access time is less than 5 ns (nano second is 1/1000000000th of a second). It's not that it's not faster, theoretically it is but it is not noticeable in every day use. A simple latency benchmark.

 

[yojitani]

Thanks. That's interesting. I am a bit puzzled as to why someone would pay the premium for such a minimal speed/performance bump.

 

[darrenscerri]

Thanks. That's interesting. I am a bit puzzled as to why someone would pay the premium for such a minimal speed/performance bump.

Yep... business tactics. Imagine someone who sees these two RAM options, High Performance and Regular and can afford the 15$ premium, even if he doesn't know the difference, he would definitely buy the High Performance one.

 

[BlueRevolution]

Thanks. That's interesting. I am a bit puzzled as to why someone would pay the premium for such a minimal speed/performance bump.

So that they can flaunt it in d*ck-measuring contests with friends.

Also, high-performance memory tends to have flashy heat spreaders to match the chrome and UV lighting these people tend to go for.

 

[yojitani]

So that they can flaunt it in d*ck-measuring contests with friends.

Also, high-performance memory tends to have flashy heat spreaders to match the chrome and UV lighting these people tend to go for.

Whatever floats one's boat I suppose. Glow in the dark computers and flashy ram... Back in the day it was rims and trims.

Thanks for the help Darren and Blue. I'll save myself $15

 

[CubeHacker]

Not exactly sure which "high performance" ram you are looking at since you didn't provide links. But generally, people purchase them because they can overclock to higher frequencies and still be stable. Putting "performance" RAM into a computer won't magically make it run faster, you have to go into the BIOS and tweak the memory settings to lower the latency settings.

Since your MBP doesn't even have the ability to overclock, not does it have any BIOS options, its entirely pointless to purchase performance ram.

 

[michael.lauden]

you should be fine with regular RAM. whether it's 4GB, or 6GB - you aren't going to notice that big of a difference with the RAM being high performance or not. atleast IMHO

 

[yojitani]

Not exactly sure which "high performance" ram you are looking at since you didn't provide links. But generally, people purchase them because they can overclock to higher frequencies and still be stable. Putting "performance" RAM into a computer won't magically make it run faster, you have to go into the BIOS and tweak the memory settings to lower the latency settings.

Since your MBP doesn't even have the ability to overclock, not does it have any BIOS options, its entirely pointless to purchase performance ram.

I was looking at this one:
Omni

 

[PowerBookRelic]

I was looking at this one:
Omni

If you are looking at 2 X 1GB configuration, which is what I could gather from the link you sent, the cost was $50 (for a total of 2GB). Definitely check out http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/

From what I could gather about the ram you were going to buy, you can get 1 2GB chip for $25 from the macsales website... so combined with the 1 GB chip you had, that would make 3GB from $25. Or the 2 X 2GB setup, for a total of 4 GB would cost the same price as your 2GB set up, or $49....

Note: I may have read the omni site wrong, the layout/colors was giving me a headache!

 

[Bacong]

I'm pretty sure MBP's don't like it if you have 2 sticks of different memory types.

Also, he probably has 2 512 sticks in there.

 

[yojitani]

Yes, Omni has a horrendous website - very 1999. Actually, it's cheaper than that if you go through ramseeker. I was only looking at that one as an example of the 'hyperperformance' ram. The regular one is like $21 going through ramseeker. At any rate, it is most likely to be 2X512 in there, so I will have to take it all out. Also, it's a CD so it won't take more than 2GB anyway.. afaik.

I'll check out macsales. I've bought from Omni in the past and, although I've heard some bad things about them on these boards, they've always been very good to me.

edit: OWC looks good. I like that they'll take your old ram. I've got so many sticks of ram sitting around. I have no idea what to do with it since it usually has zero resale value.