4GB Gets Cheap: 9 Dual-Channel Kits Compared

[Crashman]

Recent price drops have made 4 GB DDR2 dual-channel kits affordable for even the most cost-conscious buyers. We pushed nine models to their limits to determine best value for a broad range of users.

4GB Gets Cheap: 9 Dual-Channel Kits Compared : Read more

 

[randomizer]

Good to see G.Skill finally decided to send some samples.

 

[JonnyDough]

You can increase how much ram is used for prefetch in XP as well, so that hardly says that Vista is faster than XP once you use more RAM. I for one have skipped the Vista era and am happily awaiting Windows 7. I guess I prefer to keep my $100 in my wallet for awhile instead of giving it to M$ investors.

 

[V3NOM]

i rofl'd that my cheap Team Elite owned all of them except the ballistix...

 

[JonnyDough]

Stop using rebates as qualifiers. I was taught in consumer math that if you purchase something with the cost of a rebate figured in, you had better be prepared to pay full price. I think a lot of us here IGNORE rebate pricing, and won't even support it by buying rebated items. Rebates are CRAP, no consumer likes them. They aren't a "discount" they are a marketing ploy to rip people off.

 

[raider37]

I'm pretty darn happy with my 4GB of XMS2 DDR2-800 RAM from Corsair, all my components are overclocked and work extremely well, plus here in Pakistan only 2 memory companies are widely available (Kingston and corsair) and we all know kingston is overpriced and their modules do not perform as well as Corsairs.

 

[johnbilicki]

As a regular I feel insulted that my fellow readers and I are expected to except an introduction suggesting that we are mindless consumers no different than the people who trampled and killed a worker at Walmart this past Friday.

My dual core socket 939 with 2GB of RAM running XP Pro might not get as much FPS as my friend running a quad with 4GB and Vista but my system runs smooth on almost all the same games without dealing with all the constant freezing, errors, glitches, and horrendous boot times plus I don't have to run a page file. A real enthusiast would turn in their grave if they saw qttask in the task manager. Real pride is knowing your rig's software too and mindlessly burning money instead doing a few simple Google queries is what an amateur would do.

I expect better than this. It does really matter.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]johnbilicki[/nom]As a regular I feel insulted that my fellow readers and I are expected to except an introduction suggesting that we are mindless consumers no different than the people who trampled and killed a worker at Walmart this past Friday.[/citation]

That sounds like the voice of experience...you were at that Wal Mart? Because it appears that everyone else automatically knew that the introduction was meant to cover the widest range of potential buyers, and not each one of them specifically. Yet you mindlessly trampled into that rant?

 

[johnbilicki]

[citation][nom]Crashman[/nom]That sounds like the voice of experience...you were at that Wal Mart? Because it appears that everyone else automatically knew that the introduction was meant to cover the widest range of potential buyers, and not each one of them specifically. Yet you mindlessly trampled into that rant?[/citation]

The introduction slaps everyone in the face by suggesting money is the only solution. Even less experienced people know how to do a Google query.

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who haven't got it." - George Bernard Shaw

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]johnbilicki[/nom]The introduction slaps everyone in the face by suggesting money is the only solution. Even less experienced people know how to do a Google query."The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who haven't got it." - George Bernard Shaw[/citation]

It suggests that very little money can be a very easy solution to multiple performance issues.

And you're using a quote to emphasise your cynicism concerning my observation? Thanks!

 

[johnbilicki]

[citation][nom]Crashman[/nom]It suggests that very little money can be a very easy solution to multiple performance issues.And you're using a quote to emphasise your cynicism concerning my observation? Thanks![/citation]

...and entirely avoids the point of optimizing a system's software just as you have! It's an informal fallacy to suggest you have made some unique observation as I have when all you have done is avoid my point in the simple interest to convince people to spend money instead of simply preventing junk from being loaded in to their existing memory.

 

[Tjik]

OK, so this is one of those articles that has no value at all outside of the US. In my view it's kind of pointless to make such a twisted calculation that puts everything upside down, with conclusions that might be worth zero tomorrow. If it's true that G.Skill hasn'tbeen very keen on sending some RAM for testing I think this article won't make them more willing to.

Offer easy to understand figures and don't promote any rebate schemes. A consumer isn't more stupid than that he's able to figure out that it might be a good idea to check what special offers are available at the day of the buy. Or is this article to be updated on a regular basis until the next big round-up? Rebates aren't some kind of fixed market value.

 

[Unolocogringo]

Who pissed in your cereal this morning????
This article is for the masses. The same ones who trampled the walmart employee.The same ones who have no idea what mscon*** or services.*** are.That is aproximately 99% of the readers of this site.

 

[zodiacfml]

i think the article and crashman still has a point, though not for us enthusiast who knows a lot of how things work in a pc,device, or machine.
there are a lot of solutions improving performance but for some people it will be easier for them to spend than spend time learn anything. not really a good attitude but that is just a lot of people do today, probably the reason why super expensive gaming systems and products exist. ignorance is bliss.

 

[Pei-chen]

As a mindless drone, I prefer the “throw more resources at it” approach. The 8GB OCZ PC2-6400 RAM in my Vista x64 computer only cost $50 and I never need to buy more RAM as long as keep this PC (next rebuild Q1 2011)

I am surprised OCZ didn’t send anything for review; they usually have the cheapest kits.

BTW johnbilicki, what would happen to your setup if windows tries to run a program that requires more than 2GB of physical RAM?

 

[malveaux]

I have 8gigs of the XMS2 Corsair in my Vista64 machine. I can't feel any difference from 2gigs that I had. But after turning off the page file. I hear my disc less often. Woo....

=/

 

[98silvz71]

My 4 GB Kingston HyperX DDR2-800 Ram runs at 5-5-5-15 at 1000Mhz with 2.2v. I only payed around 70 dollars for all 4GB. Something is not right with the results that you got for your sets.

 

[Guest]

The point of this article was to help outline price changes in the DDR2 market, and how a relatively small amount of cash might help the majority of users (How many people who repair friends' computers see all that crap they have on their machine. Sure you can fix it, but they're just going to accumulate more crap. You can't fix it forever). I remember when I made a build for my family a few years ago. A pair of 1GB Dual channel OCZ 667 was the most expensive part in the build... a number of months after I bought it, I was surprised at how cheap it was. It is seriously 90% cheaper than what I bought then, and higher performance also. 90% off is a huge deal.

 

[Huttfuzz]

Love the article. Thanks Crashman.

 

[ooo]

Great article man thks for the information ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡

 

[slomo4sho]

Thanks for the write up. The Corsair XMS2 went on sale for as low as $15 after a $35 MIR on Black Friday.

What was the best speeds you were able to obtain on the XMS2 at the rated 1.9v? I have a pair of sticks in the mail and look forward to fine tuning these

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the review, but I think there is a critical piece of information missing: the consistency of performance between modules of the same brand. I.e., for a different batch of contestants, but of the same models, how different would the results be? Without this information, the review looks a bit anecdotal.

 

[bounty]

To me, it seems 40$ is the actual low for 4GB kits. The 25$ is a one off thing.. after a rebate. There are a bunch of modules at the 40-50$ price point w/o rebates. Those are the modules that should be reviewed. With maybe only 2 kits that cost significantly more as an example of value.

 

[Tjik]

Kind of funny sometimes to see what happens. By mistake my comment became market as "negative" (some temporary error on the site made the field for comments only showing the last letter of everything I wrote among other things), as hence most probably think I'm in a bad mode here trashing the article.

No big deal, but the round-up was good. My only complaint is, and it's a miner, that since most hastily read through articles the last diagram will make a standing impression because of these rebates that aren't exactly what the test did prove.

Otherwise one of the important parts about RAM is how unpredictable it is. As the article shows it has to be tested. In a sense I think the diagram at page 6 isn't totally fair, because of you pay premium for getting something rated at PC-6400, equal to a just as compatible PC-8000, the percent overclock is kind of irrelevant. A factor difficult to predict is how stable these modules are after 24/7 for a sustainable time.

Anyway, I'm sorry if my last post came across as if I trashed Crashman's work.

 

[troll]

What the hell, no OCZ? Bad article.