Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

what are the ...positive... points about apple ram?

student_trap

student_trap

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 14, 2005
1,879
0
'Ol Smokey, UK
Hey guys,

In the next few weeks I should be ordering a mac pro (which I hope will last me a good many years), and so far have pretty much decided what to get down to a couple of things:

2.8 octo (although id like to hear how different to the three this is?)
8800 GT
1 TB HD
AP
BT mouse/KB
Applecare

with the higher education discount that brings me down to £1895

My budget is around the £2700 mark, although less is obviously better, and I am seriously considering upgrading to 8 gigs of apple ram.

This upgrade would cost me £800, and as such kind of smacks a bit of a rip off, as i could get more HD, 3rd party ram and a nice monitor for the same price.

However, i live within the UK, and as such am not blessed by the cheap, easily shipped (and returned if faulty!) ram that you guys have satateside.

I ask therefore, what are the good reasons from buying RAM from apple? I need reassurance because Ive never spent this sort of money on a comp before, and I dont want to get things horrendously wrong!

Thanks in advance

Student_trap
 
Hey,

Never buy ram or hard drives from Apple unless you like throwing money away. I cant see any reason to buy ram from them.

Go to Crucial.com/uk and get your MacPro ram from them. They guarantee it to work with the MacPro.

I would only buy Ram from Apple, if you were terrified about putting the ram in your self. But it's so easy to do, there really isn't anything to worry about.
 
im not really scared about adding ram, or other minor upgrades for that matter.

For me its more that getting ram from owc seems like it would be a bit of a pain, and that over here, the ram cant be that much cheaper.

For example, if the apple ram was only a couple of hundred more, then id get it for piece of mind and the ease of the process.

can anyone tell me any positives of buying from apple?
 
There is no good reason to buy RAM from Apple. Non whatsoever.

Buy from macsales.com and import. You just get charged VAT on it, no duty. They ship internationally frequently and it's an option when you checkout your basket, no pain in it at all.

Don't give Apple £800 for what you can get for £250-£300.
 
let's be fair.
no one can say there isn't any benefit from buying ram from apple.

for one, it's definitely easier. you don't have to do it yourself, you don't have to find it yourself, you don't have to open the case yourself, and you don't have to worry about calling another company other than apple shall anything cease to work. that said, it comes at a cost. many, including myself, do not feel the added cost justifies the minimal effort needed to secure ram.
 
yeah see thats the point for me, with the apple ram it would all be covered by applecare, is the macsales ram similarly covered? £500 is however a lot of money, and could be spent very wisely elsewhere.

assuming that I buy from a 3rd party than, can anything good be thought of apple ram...is it of higher quality or anything?
 
It's just RAM, there's really no way to judge quality so long as it meets specification. You'd hardly be going out on a limb doing this, everyone does it. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a Pro with oodles of cash that would fork up for Apple supplied memory. It just quite simply isn't worth it.

At the end of the day it's down to you, but for the truly massive price difference any possible trouble down the road is worth the extremely small risk.
 
Once again, ram is ram. Apple's ram isn't any better or worse than others on the market. Certainly not enough to pay 2x the ram's retail price.

Think about it, look on as many as many Apple and PC forums as you can find and see how many people complain of failed ram.

Yes, the odd case does occur. So long as it is not allowed to overheat, damaged in installation or damaged in shipping in general ram is one of the most reliable parts in a computer.
 
I got 8GB of 800MHz RAM (4x2GB) guaranteed by OWC to work in my 2.8 Octo, and I paid £200 for it. I sold my 2GB of real Apple RAM (Hynix) for £178 including postage on eBay, and frankly given that the RAM was virtually unavailable here, the buyer got a fine deal.

In short, I went from 2GB to 8GB for about £23. What is Apple charging you? Expect Crucial to charge a huge amount for the MP 2008 RAM, but even that will be about half of what Apple charges.
 
Apple ram = Covered by Applecare
3rd Party ram = covered by the manufacturer's warranty

Applecare duration = 3 years
Average 3rd party manufacturer warranty = lifetime

So, as long as:

1) It's a DIY classified mac and/or you have an apple certified technician install the 3rd party ram.

and

2) You are willing to remove the 3rd party ram when sending your mac back to apple for service

Then 99% of the time you're better off with 3rd party ram.
 
netdog said:
I got 8GB of 800MHz RAM (4x2GB) guaranteed by OWC to work in my 2.8 Octo, and I paid £200 for it. I sold my 2GB of real Apple RAM (Hynix) for £178 including postage on eBay, and frankly given that the RAM was virtually unavailable here, the buyer got a fine deal.

In short, I went from 2GB to 8GB for about £23. What is Apple charging you? Expect Crucial to charge a huge amount for the MP 2008 RAM, but even that will be about half of what Apple charges.
Click to expand...

I was bidding on that and can't believe it went so high! You did really well Netdog... your £23 upgrade is tempting but I'm waiting until feb 28 for my Mac pro and I guess ebay will be flooded with people's stock 2gb Ram. I doubt it will fetch as much when we don't have the 'exclusive' you did;)
 
newkeyboard said:
I was bidding on that and can't believe it went so high! You did really well Netdog... your £23 upgrade is tempting but I'm waiting until feb 28 for my Mac pro and I guess ebay will be flooded with people's stock 2gb Ram. I doubt it will fetch as much when we don't have the 'exclusive' you did;)
Click to expand...
heh, just what i was thinking, word for word. well, 'cept mine is due on a different day ;)
 
For those that like the peace of mind they get by buying genuine Apple Mac Pro RAM I am selling my stock 2x1GB modules that came in my 2.8, 8 Core Mac Pro.

Bidding starts at £0.99
Check my sig. :)
 
The RAM Apple sells is not made by Apple. It's just Samsung or Hynix with an incredibly large price tag. At least this is what I have seen in the MacBook and MacBook Pro.
 
Let's look at this issue objectively. There is never a right or wrong decision to buying apple ram or not, because it's highly dependant on many factors. We must understand that there are ALWAYS consequences to our actions and decisions. Let us look at the pros and cons of buying apple and third parties ram objectively, and then decide which approach suits us best in the end. Like I say before there's never a right or wrong choice over here. It's just a matter of personal choice and preference. What influence our decision-making are a chain of events and factors which we must weigh carefully because if not they will come back and haunt us in the end.

PROS OF APPLE RAMS

  1. FULLY R&Ded. By using the factory apple ram, and following the Apple's recommendation and instructions, your system is guaranteed and waranteed to work. You do not to research and understand anything about the rams, because Apple has taken care of that for you. You have the peace of mind everything will work, or will be covered by Applecare if they don't.
  2. You do not have to install the rams yourself. All modules are factory-installed when you received your system. This is an important point because not many people like to do upgrades by themselves as they are not computer savvy enough. I understand ram installation is user-servisable, but not eveyone is comfortable enough to do installation themselves.
  3. If any part of your system fails for some reason during Applecare period, all you need is bring in your system to a service provider or Apple directly without going through the process of uninstalling aftermarket products (rams, hard disks, optical drives etc)
  4. You don't have to lie through your teeth when you bring in your system to Apple if it fails when asked if you have previously installed third parties products, and/or argue endlessly with Apple support because you know you have a virgin Apple-installed-and-configured system untouched by third parties products.

CONS OF APPLE RAMS

  1. Extremely expensive. Apple rams are at least 2-3 times more expensive than third-party rams of the same specifications.
  2. That is all I can seriously think of right now. I'm quite sure most will agree with me.

PROS OF THIRD-PARTY RAMS

  1. Much cheaper. Most if not all third-party rams are at least half or a third of the price Apple is charging.
  2. Most vendors offer lifetime warranty on their rams, so eventhough Apple doesn't cover them, the third-party vendors do.
  3. Rams are often pretty much top quality because most of the users who have used them have reported satisfactory results. Even the vendor's service and shipping is excellent.

CONS OF APPLE RAM

  1. You will never be guaranteed that the rams will perform cohesively with your system, and the vendors will not replace or reimbuse you if your system fail for any reason, eventhough you may claim or suspect it's due to their rams. Apple will screw you over as well if after extensive diagnosis is done to your system and concluded that the damage is caused by a third-party RAMs. Of course you can argue you didn't install any third-party rams so on and so forth. So this is the hassle you will have to go through.
  2. If you system fails for ANY reason, you will need to uninstall all the rams and/or other third-part products before you can send it back to Apple for replacement/diagnosis under Applecare, since we are know Applecare ONLY covers Apple factory parts and products. This can be alot of hassle especially if you have sold off the factory RAMs, or format the factory 320GB hard drives for data storage instead, since that means you have to get yourself some used Apple rams, removed the third-party boot drive, reformat the stock 320GB as the boot drive over again.
  3. Now this applies to all third-party products. The more third-party products you have in your system, the more vendors you need to deal with in the event these products fail. With strictly Apple products/parts in your system, you only need to deal with Apple. If you are not prepared to deal with all these different vendors, and/or sourcing parts yourself, STAY STOCK!!

Lastly, please remember... when you mod your system, like every product in the world, the original manufacturer will not cover you. So mod with caution. Like I say, there's never a right or wrong. It's a personal thing.
 
I used OWC/MacSales, once they were available, they were shipped and delivered within 4 days via FedEx.

I was also lucky in the customs department which made it even cheaper ;)

Don't be afraid to buy from the US. Even with 17.5% VAT, it will be much cheaper.

If in the unfortunate event that you have faulty RAM, it won't be that expensive to send it back (although inconvenient.)
 
There is such a thing as "Apple Certified" third party RAM as well.

Basically, if you install some random memory that should work, and for some crazy reason that ram damaged something else on your Mac Pro, say the logic board. your apple care is void.

It should be known i have NEVER seen inserting correct RAM into a computer damage anything, it typically will either work, or it won't.

Apple Certified RAM, while still not covered under your Apple care warranty, will keep you under warranty if something like the above should happen.
 
edesignuk said:
^ This post is complete tosh ^

RAM and hard drives are user replaceable parts, fitting them yourself will not void warranty.
Click to expand...

You are missing the point.

User-servicable does not mean you are allowed to install third-party parts. It only means you can purchase Apple parts and installing them yourselves. :rolleyes:

Try bringing your system that's filled with third-party parts and see if Applecare 's gonna fix your system.

Then come back and tell me if what I say is rubbish.

I on the other hand is speaking from own personal experience with words from Applecare. Are you speaking from personal experience?
 
I've returned machines before under AppleCare with RAM I installed and had no problem.

RAM and hard drives should never be something that will void a warranty.
 
you're right.
the minute you tell an apple technician you've installed ANYTHING that didn't come with the original system (i.e.: apple installed), they assume it's that that's causing the problem. if i was running apple, i'd probably do the same thing.

but no. if you're wondering. i wouldn't buy apple ram. my wallet says no and my wife concurs.
 
edesignuk said:
I've returned machines before under AppleCare with RAM I installed and had no problem.

RAM and hard drives should never be something that will void a warranty.
Click to expand...

You repeatedly shun away from the important keywords I've mentioned. Let me restate them again:-

"Third-party" parts.

If you have third-party parts in your system, and you bring your system to Applecare, they will refuse to touch it let alone inspect it. The technician will take note of your system serial, and make a remark on your warranty info, voiding your Applecare eventually.

This is not a question about servicing your system youself at all. You CAN do so as long as you are replacing Apple-certified user-servicable parts AND using Apple parts. No third-party parts.

Let me know if you need an example.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back