Does the RAM brand make a difference?

Primex

Primex

New Member
I've been wanting to upgrade my old laptop's RAM from 1G to 2G. It's a Dell Inspiron 9300. Does it make any difference if I buy cheaper RAM chips from another site, or should I just buy the ones from the Dell site that actually is a Dell RAM chip? Would the performance be any difference?
 
Yes the brand makes a difference, but dont buy Dell ram. It is very expensive, for the sole purpose of buying it from Dell.
 
What would be a good brand? I see some on ebay for cheap prices that would be compatible for my laptop. I have a Inspiron 9300 and the max that it can have is 2G.
 
Primex said:
What would be a good brand? I see some on ebay for cheap prices that would be compatible for my laptop. I have a Inspiron 9300 and the max that it can have is 2G.
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According to the information I looked up, you should purchase two 200-pin DDR2 PC2-4200 memory modules. I would buy two 1 gigabyte modules if you want to maximize your memory.

Brands I have purchased are the following:

Super Talent (made in America)
Crucial
Mushkin
Kingmax

I have had a good experience with all of the above memory chips. I have also heard good things about OCZ memory.

Try looking for Random Access Memory at NewEgg.com. I have bought RAM products from them and have had several good experiences.
 
Dell RAM is just Hynix or Micron, there's nothing special about it. I would avoid ebay for RAM. Some RAM from newegg is fairly cheap and will be good.
 
in my experience, the ram brand doesnt make much dfference. but like more popular companies like Kingston and more trusted then unknown ones and probably have a better warranty?

i dont know what im talking about. does all ram have a warranty?
 
Most does, if you get some generic stuff it may not have any warranty or if it does it might be a little hard to claim.
 
I've heard complaints about Kingmax and some will get something besides Super Talent. OCZ is known as a premium brand and highly rated. Others include Corsair, Kingston, Crucial, with some seeing good results with G.Skill. On the other hand some generic brands as well as GEIL don't make the grade quite often.

As far as Dell they are always overpriced. But the same can be said about buying memory from the other companies like Gateway, eMachines, even HP. EBay would be the last place for memory as far as any returns. A regular vendor like newegg, TIgerDirect, mwave, and others have their own return policies on new memory as well as other things.

Another thing that will draw a higher on memory is the type. Performance memory with faster timings will generally run higer then value ram. Currently newegg only has that memory seen in two brands only. G.Skill abd Crucial 2gb kits(2x1gb) as seen at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...21133+1052910525+1309121117&name=2GB+(2+x+1GB)
 
Cool, saw a couple on newegg. That's awesome, thanks for all of your help people! I'll have to keep a mental note to avoid Ebay, for some reason I always turn to that site for things I need even though I know I can get better deals that are more trustworthy at other sites.
 
Primex said:
Cool, saw a couple on newegg. That's awesome, thanks for all of your help people! I'll have to keep a mental note to avoid Ebay, for some reason I always turn to that site for things I need even though I know I can get better deals that are more trustworthy at other sites.
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Cheap Ebay Ram that seems too good to be true = High density
 
I think the best revision of terms for cheap ram = slower timings. Instead of seeing something like 4-4-4-12 or faster you would be seeing 5-5-5-15. But this allows applies to the value mamory by good brands as well seeing the slower timings. In actuality however the differences in densities refer to the way the memory is designed. A quick reference for this goes as follows.

FAQ - What does high density and low density memory mean?
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The density of a memory module refers to the number of the chips that are on the module. Different computers require the memory module to be built with a different number of chips. i.e. There is more than one way to build a 128MB or 256MB memory module. Use our memory configurator below to make sure you get the right module that is guaranteed compatible with your computer.
http://www.4allmemory.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=faq.details&faq_id=102
 
The Ram brands make a massive difference i have 4 kingston 512 mb ram modules in my machine along with them being dual channeled it works a whole lot better than having different ram brands in each slot as the 4 Kingston ram modules are all the same and they all run at the same speed and set out the same voltages.
 
Hsv_Man said:
The Ram brands make a massive difference i have 4 kingston 512 mb ram modules in my machine along with them being dual channeled it works a whole lot better than having different ram brands in each slot as the 4 Kingston ram modules are all the same and they all run at the same speed and set out the same voltages.
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ahh hsv man i see you have some experience with dells. well i hope they are at the same voltages :P
 
You'll find all too often that the best brands will have always see good warranties while the generic and cheapie brands simply leave you hanging somewhere. OCZ carries their own as well as others. Corsair is a popular gaming memory seeing high demand there.
 
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