[frankthetank966]

I have heard of tons of brands Kingston, Corsair, Crucial....What is the BEST company for Ram for a Macbook C2D?

[C.A.T.S. CEO]

Crucial.

Kingston = KP

[Big Mac]

That's BS CATS. Kingston is quality name brand RAM. If you stick with a name brand you should be fine. RAM all basically comes from the same sources; it's just that the name brand vendors test their chips much more rigorously before selling them. The only time you need to go with a particular brand is if you're talking about the Mac Pro, which needs oversized heat sinks.

[CharlesS]

Seconded. As long as you avoid the cheap stuff, more likely than not it'll be fine.

With that said, Crucial is Micron, which has been what Apple has preinstalled on most of the Macs I've looked at, so you really can't go wrong with them. Kingston, Viking, and Corsair are very well-respected brands as well.

[C.A.T.S. CEO]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

That's BS CATS. Kingston is quality name brand RAM. If you stick with a name brand you should be fine. RAM all basically comes from the same sources; it's just that the name brand vendors test their chips much more rigorously before selling them. The only time you need to go with a particular brand is if you're talking about the Mac Pro, which needs oversized heat sinks.

I always hear about Kingston RAM giving Macs kernel panics, its quality RAM in a PC, but it doesn't seem that way in a Mac.

[chabig]

RAM is RAM. Buy the cheapest and get a lifetime warranty.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by C.A.T.S. CEO 

I always hear about Kingston RAM giving Macs kernel panics, its quality RAM in a PC, but it doesn't seem that way in a Mac.

Depends. They have a "Value" line that's cheaper, that's not certified for Macs. It's a crap shoot whether it will work or not.

The more expensive stuff that they say works in Macs, seems to work fairly well.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

With that said, Crucial is Micron, which has been what Apple has preinstalled on most of the Macs I've looked at, so you really can't go wrong with them.

My MacBook came with "Hynix" RAM preintalled ... never heard of 'em.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by C.A.T.S. CEO 

I always hear about Kingston RAM giving Macs kernel panics, its quality RAM in a PC, but it doesn't seem that way in a Mac.

I have standard Kingston RAM in my G5. I have had Kingston in many Macs going back years without problems.

Originally Posted by chabig 

RAM is RAM. Buy the cheapest and get a lifetime warranty.

I used to agree that any RAM with a lifetime warranty is fine until generic RAM in my iBook failed spontaneously after years of use (which should be unusual), and I learned the difference between generic and name brand RAM.

[cgc]

People who buy Crucial are buying for brand reputation, although I haven't heard anything bad about any of the other brands.

I'd buy from any brand that has a good price and warantee and have OWC memory working fine in my MacPro.

[frankthetank966]

So there is no difference in performance just rep.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by frankthetank966 

So there is no difference in performance just rep.

Generally, yes, there is no real gain to be had from choosing a particular name brand over another particular name brand, unless we're talking about the Mac Pro as I mentioned. Some expensive types of RAM are sold to PC enthusiasts who like to overclock their computers and play with RAM timing variables for very small gains, but since Apple hardware does not allow for such tweaks it's money wasted.

[cgc]

That's what I meant to say I've used OWC, Kingston, and generic RAM (in my Amiga 3000) with no problems ever. Just make sure you either wear ESD wriststrap or touch case when installing and you should be fine.

[Veltliner]

I just installed Crucial 1GB RAM PC-2-5300 in my iMAC g5 iSight.

They have really great prices. I mean, I paid 47$ for one Gigabyte quality ram (sure, ram for the newest line of iMacs is always more expensive, but still...)

[frankthetank966]

Yea if you look around crucial has sweet prices.

[imago dei]

Just to plug Other World Computing (OWC) and their lifetime warranty.... I've used their RAM in my past five Macs and haven't had any problems–up until last week. A 512 chip I'm using in an iBook G4 started to flake out. I bought the chip back in 2004 and didn't have any sort of an invoice. A quick email into the company with the serial number of the chip (to confirm I did indeed buy it from them) and they cross shipped me a new chip (I gave them my credit card information, they shipped out the replacement and are awaiting my original chip for a refund).

Though I'm aware other manufacturers provide lifetime warranties on their chips, I've always found OWC's prices to be pretty reasonable–and their service was great.

-imago dei

[Big Mac]

At least in the recent past, when I was more interested in RAM prices, OWC was the lowest cost reseller of RAM. At least their cheapest RAM is generic, and imago had a very similar experience to the one I had with a generic stick of RAM in my iBook (bought from a different company). I was very surprised to find that the RAM had spontaneously failed after working for a year or more without any problems. I called around and it was explained to me by one reseller that if your module does not have a name brand on it, it's low quality RAM that may have failed the rigorous testing of the major brands and then sold to companies that sell it as generic RAM. That's why I'll only go with name brand RAM now.

[mac128k-1984]

Kingston is crap, I've seen too many computers have problems with them.

You get what you pay for and if you get the cheapest ram on the market you may run into problems.

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by mac128k-1984 

Kingston is crap, I've seen too many computers have problems with them.

You get what you pay for and if you get the cheapest ram on the market you may run into problems.

Actually, Kingston is pretty expensive. Kingston would have cost me twice what the Crucial RAM cost me.

[mac128k-1984]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

Actually, Kingston is pretty expensive. Kingston would have cost me twice what the Crucial RAM cost me.

Really I've stopped considering Kingston a while ago and at that point they were pretty inexpensive.

Since Macs have a long history of being finicky with ram that may be borderline regarding the specifications, I've opted for the either Crucial, OWC or even apple at times. I've never been (knocks on wood) disappointed when I go with those three. I generally avoid apple because the markup is so high but there's been occasions where it made more sense to buy from them then otherwise.

[tavin64]

Samsung

[frankthetank966]

I'm getting Crucial!!! Seems like a wise move.