which name brand is the best quality?

[dman777]

For all my life in computers with two different systems and many Windows re-installs, when playing winamp everyonce in awhile I get a Windows XP error where it saids 'This application has had an error and will shut down'. This happens sometimes in other apps also, but I mainly use Winamp so that why I use winamp for an example. I just built a new system and I still have this problem. This time for Ram I went with a OCZ 1 gig where I spent $75.00. I guess you could say I got a lower grade model of ram. The only problem I can eliminate this to is the possiblity of low quality ram. Well, I was going to upgrade my ram anyways for vista but this time I want to get the best qaulty name brand Ram there is, regardless of price. Which brand name is the best quality out of the three: OCZ, Crucial, or Corsair?

 

[NoNeeD]

this error happens to me in winamp as well. Only in certain games tho and never at other times think it is certain programs overrunning each others memory. If your memory is bad you can tell easily run prime95.

most likely unless these crashes happen often in different programs it is a windows/winamp issue and not ram. I know in my case it is not my ram or cpu dunno what it is tho :/ i can run prime95 for 40+ hours with no errors.

If your memory or cpu are messing up prime95 will crash in minutes or a couple of hours, Usually minutes.

 

[NoNeeD]

oh just 1 thought you havent reused any stuff from your old computer wireless cards/tv cards/sound cards etc as sometimes conflicts between devices can cause stuff like this.

 

[dman777]

yeah, that could be it also. strange, i thought it was just me haveing this issue because when i posted it on the winamp forum i never got any replies. i have ocz, and that seems to be a pretty reputable brand, so maybe it is just the winamp/windows issue.

 

[proof]

Tier 1:
Corsair
OCZ

Tier 2:
Ballistics
G.Skill
Geil
Muskin
Crucial

 

[Sparko]

Tier 1:
Corsair
OCZ

Tier 2:
Ballistics
G.Skill
Geil
Muskin
Crucial

Hey where does kingston lie in .... ???? :?: :?: :?: :?: :?:

 

[proof]

Tier 3

 

[agogley35]

how did you come to your conclusions on the tiers? And what about Patriot and Buffalo, two of the top contenders in the recent review?

 

[sirrobin4ever]

Tier 1:
Corsair
OCZ

Tier 2:
Ballistics
G.Skill
Geil
Muskin
Crucial

I disagree. Its MUCH more complicated than this simple list. Each manufacturer makes different grades of RAM.

 

[sailer]

OCZ is very good ram. Corsair used to considered expensive, but the best. In the past year, though, Corsair changed the IC chips from Micron to Promos and their quality and reliability have gone way down. The last two sets of Corsair ram I got both failed. Corsair says its a motherboard problem, but when I use an older set of Corsair ram, everything works fine. Next ram I buy will be OCZ.

Agogley35, Patriot has long been considered cheap ram. It may work, but hasn't had the abilities for overclocking that Corsair, OCZ, and Mushkin have. Buffalo is on the fringes so far. It may end up a top rated company, but not yet. Then again, these things are subject to change as top rated companies have a problem or lower rated companies come out with something really good.

Sparko, Kingston has been at various time rated good, and various times only adequate. I wouldn't hesitate to use it in my office computer, but when it comes to overclocking in my gaming machine, I look elsewhere.

 

[Mondoman]

... OCZ, Crucial, or Corsair?

There is no answer to your question. As sir pointed out, each manufacturer sells different models, and even different lines. Corsair's premium XMS and XMS2 lines have long had excellent reputations for compatibility and performance, but their ValueSelect line is (IMHO) junk.
As another example, Kingston's emphasis seems to be on compatibility. Even their "value" line, ValueRAM, seems to have few issues.
In your case, there is a good chance the problem could be something other than the memory -- it could even be software (e.g. a driver problem).

As others have said, one good way to check if your memory is working correctly is to download and run memtest86+. It's available free as a downloadable bootable floppy or CD image.

 

[XMSYellowbeard]

OCZ is very good ram. Corsair used to considered expensive, but the best. In the past year, though, Corsair changed the IC chips from Micron to Promos and their quality and reliability have gone way down. The last two sets of Corsair ram I got both failed. Corsair says its a motherboard problem, but when I use an older set of Corsair ram, everything works fine. Next ram I buy will be OCZ.

Just FYI, we use MANY different ICs in our memory, just like everyone with the possible exception of Crucial. I think they are currently 100$ Micron. To say that our quality is lower because of Promos is simply not true. Our quality and reliability has not gone down and I believe that our failure rate is probably the lowest in the industry though there is no way to verify this.

It's unfortunate that you had 2 failures and I certainly understand your decision to switch brands after that. But, there is a good chance you will be buying Promos or, some IC other than Micron, depending on which model you select.

For the OP here, this does not sound like a RAM issue at all.

 

[proof]

Anyone know of any compatability issues with OCZ DDR2 800 with the built in water block? I will be using it on a Crosshair.

 

[sailer]

OCZ is very good ram. Corsair used to considered expensive, but the best. In the past year, though, Corsair changed the IC chips from Micron to Promos and their quality and reliability have gone way down. The last two sets of Corsair ram I got both failed. Corsair says its a motherboard problem, but when I use an older set of Corsair ram, everything works fine. Next ram I buy will be OCZ.

Just FYI, we use MANY different ICs in our memory, just like everyone with the possible exception of Crucial. I think they are currently 100$ Micron. To say that our quality is lower because of Promos is simply not true. Our quality and reliability has not gone down and I believe that our failure rate is probably the lowest in the industry though there is no way to verify this.

It's unfortunate that you had 2 failures and I certainly understand your decision to switch brands after that. But, there is a good chance you will be buying Promos or, some IC other than Micron, depending on which model you select.

For the OP here, this does not sound like a RAM issue at all.

Ok, FYI and for everybody else's information for that matter, I will describe what happened. Perhaps you have a suggestion for a solution to the problem which has not been given to me as of this date.

A year ago I bought a computer with an ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe board. I bought Corsair XMS PC3200 ram with it. Wanting to go into overclocking, about six months later, I bought two gig (1 x 2) of PC3500LL Pro ram to go with my FX60 cpu. I had used Corsair ram for about 7 years at the time and never had problems at that time, so I made the purchase with good confidence.

As I turned up the performance, the ram failed. I tested it with Prime95, memtest86, Check-it diagnostics, and also in a different computer to make sure there wasn't a different computer problem affecting the ram. Finding that it failed in all tests, I contacted Corsair. Corsair told me to rerun all the tests I already had run, in addition to saying that they believed it to be a motherboard failure. Finally, there was agreement that the ram had failed and I RMA'd it.

I then received an e-mail from Corsair that the 3500 ram was not longer made. So much for the lifetime guarentee. Ok, I understand that sometimes products are superceeded by newer ones. I was told that I had a choice of accepting a set of PC3200C2 Pro ram, a set of DDR2 ram (useless in my computer) or a refund. I would have prefered a step up in ram, as it is common that when a product is discontinued, the next better product is offered in exchange. This would have been to either the PC4400LL Pro ram or the Dominator series ram. As that wasn't allowed, I decided to accept the PC3200C2 Pro ram and hope for the best.

The PC3200C2 Pro ram showed a failure in overclocking the day I got it. I was not overclocking the ram itself, but only the cpu, taking into account the needed differences in overclocking so that the ram did not exceed its clock limits, though the ram is advertised to allow a speed up to about 416 (208 doubled). Frustrated, I went ahead and bought another motherboard to make sure there wasn't a motherboard problem. There was no difference. I telephoned Corsair and was told there must be a problem with my computer, as it was unlikely to have two sets of ram fail.
With that response, I became very unhappy. The PC3200C2 Pro ram will allow the computer to function at a non-overclocked speed, but then it becomes pointless in its added expense and purpose.

Interesting enough, the original ram that I had in the computer, 2 gig of XMS PC3200 work just fine, no failures in any tests and that ram allows me to overclock my cpu without problem. From listings that I have read, the Pro line and Dominator line ram use the Micron ICs instead of the Promos ICs, but I have read of a number of people having problems with the lines using the Promos ICs.

If you have a suggestion or solution for me at this time, I'd be glad to know it.

 

[XMSYellowbeard]

Sailer, I am not trying to address your RAM issue. I appreciate that you are frustrated and I too would be frustrated under the same circumstances. The PC3500LL is great RAM, I am using a set on an A8N32 to type this. However, the ICs used are no longer made so it is beyond our control, we simply cannot make that memory any longer.

Changing ICs is not a sign of a decrease in quality. EVERY memory company does it. Since you have taken advantage of the exchange for PC3200 as opposed to a refund, and decided to change brands, it appears that you have made your choice and suggested your own solution.

I'm not bagging on you and as I said, I understand. I just don't think that the statement that our quality has dropped is accurate so I spoke up.

But, we are VERY off topic here and are borderline thread-jacking.

 

[sailer]

My choice of changing brands is not set on stone, so to speak. That's why I made the comment asking for a suggested solution to my problem concerning the Corsair ram. If you have a suggestion as to what I try next with the Corsair PC3200 ram that failed, I'd try it. Its just that the telephone response that it couldn't be the ram and had to be something else got to me.

Perhaps my picking on the change in ICs is a bit overboard and has nothing to do with a general decrease in quality. It could be just the timing of it was coincidental.

 

[XMSYellowbeard]

Well, we try harder than we ever have to maintain industry leading quality control. However, failures do occur. We do hand test EVERY XMS module before packaging and that is likely what inspired the statement about the likelihood of getting 2 consecutive bad modules in 2 different kits. It is VERY rare for us in spite of how much memory we do sell.

I have actually never owned any of our current PC3200C2 in the 2 x 1gb kits. So, I have no idea how much it will OC and that would be dependent on what ICs it is built with.

Regardless of what you were told on the phone, if the memory will not perform at its rated spex, we'll replace it. However, since the PC3500LL is gone, your options are very limited.

If you need more assistance on this, feel free to PM me or start a new thread at the Corsair forum so we can give the OP his thread back. I'll help you any way I can.

 

[gloppppp]

Tier 1:
Corsair
OCZ

Tier 2:
Ballistics
G.Skill
Geil
Muskin
Crucial

Hey where does kingston lie in .... ???? :?: :?: :?: :?: :?: :arrow: I bought a dual channel kit from Kingston and 1 module was defective,not only did Kingston give me a hassle free RMA but they paid the shipping bothways,I live in Canada and I only had to wait 4 days for a complete turnaround (they flew it to CA),extremely impressed with their warranty.

 

[ZOldDude]

I perfer Corsair or G.Skill over other brands.

The guy with ram problems...are you sure it was not the MB? I no longer will buy Asus becuase they always seem to die on me around the 3 year mark,in fact I have two RMA rebuilds still in the boxs that may never see use.

 

[sailer]

I perfer Corsair or G.Skill over other brands.

The guy with ram problems...are you sure it was not the MB? I no longer will buy Asus becuase they always seem to die on me around the 3 year mark,in fact I have two RMA rebuilds still in the boxs that may never see use.

I'm sure it wasn't the motherboard for three reasons. First, I did try replacing the motherboard and it made no difference. Two, I tried the ram in a different computer and it regestered bad in that computer as well. Three, I tried other ram in the ASUS board and it worked properly. While there may be no gaurentees, this seemed a very good indication of a ram problem.

 

[proof]

Mushkin has shown me some good times as well but I am in an OCZ phase. The XMS2 Dominator is not worth it. Good OCZ RAM is very fast RAM, very attractive, and very reliable. (I have the DDR2 1066 SLi Certified and it is INCREDIBLE. It looks awsome on my ASUS Crosshair with the 8800GTX, 5200+, Noctua HSF, Thermaltake 700W PSU, 4 WD Caviar 250GB HDDs, UV Orange SATA cables, 3 UV orange 120mm fans, Cooler Master Stacker 830 case (black) and my future second 8800GTX) Sorry, I had to brag. I just built it and I am so psyched it is ridiculous.