[mikochu]

I think Crucial sells good RAM. For over 10 years, I have bought only Crucial/Micron RAM. Yes, their prices fluctuate. I'm not sure about the most recent fluctuations. They are good about RMAs, though. I had ram go bad on me and they sent me replacements the day I called.

You folks are lucky...I remember paying $300+ for a stick of 256mb EDO SDRAM for my SMP system in the late 90s...and that's when you had to pair the sticks up. For my Power Mac and iBook, I went with OWC (macsales.com). They even sell Samsung RAM for those who want what Apple uses in their laptops.

[jwoods]

Originally Posted by mikochu

You folks are lucky...I remember paying $300+ for a stick of 256mb EDO SDRAM for my SMP system in the late 90s...

I remember when a 4MB stick was hovering around $200. Obviously showing my age here, but back then that was a lot of memory.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by jwoods

I think the bottom line comes down to.....

You want to pay a premimum price for your ram, then do it. Those that want to save some money, buy the cheaper stuff. Problem solved.

Alot of the ram is made by the same supplier anyway. After that, it's packaged and marketed by different companies. For example, how many companies use Samsung manufauctuered ram?

Your last paragraph is very important here-yes, a lot of vendors use the same producer's parts. BUT... Not all of them exhaustively test their parts before and after installation, not all of them consider timing variances an issue (it IS an issue in a lot of Macs), and a lot of them provide less than stellar performance on their warranty service.

So saving money on parts that "probably" will work is an option, and if you like the chance that you'll have problems (small though that chance may be), then go for it. I'll stick with vendors that DO all that testing and have a proven track record of taking care of their customers when the extremely tiny fraction of their products has problems. I think THAT is the real bottom line.

[himself]

Originally Posted by ghporter

Your last paragraph is very important here-yes, a lot of vendors use the same producer's parts. BUT... Not all of them exhaustively test their parts before and after installation, not all of them consider timing variances an issue (it IS an issue in a lot of Macs), and a lot of them provide less than stellar performance on their warranty service.

So saving money on parts that "probably" will work is an option, and if you like the chance that you'll have problems (small though that chance may be), then go for it. I'll stick with vendors that DO all that testing and have a proven track record of taking care of their customers when the extremely tiny fraction of their products has problems. I think THAT is the real bottom line.

I guess a hobbyist that spends all day downloading warez and playing Quake all day can take a chance on cheap ram. However, for a professional who makes their living off of their expensive computing hardware, cheap components are not an option. I go for the best that I can afford (within reason) because I don't want to take a chance on losing productivity to save a few bucks. Those pennies saved will be lost the minute those components go bad. The "extra" cash spent on quality components will easily be earned back, and then some.

[jwoods]

You are free to choose whomever you wish to buy memory. After all, it is YOUR money.

I don't agree with you implying that no other memory maker makes quality RAM, and I certainly don't agree that Crucial makes perfect memory that never has a problem (although it is excellent stuff).

You seem to be implying that any other manufactuer's RAM will "probably" cause problems and this isn't necessarily true either.

I'm not saying buy the cheapest thing you can from whomever may be selling it. I prefer to stick with various quality companies that I know will honor the warranty and not give any hassles when returning it. Crucial is not the only one out there.

Mushkin, Corsair, Gigaram, OCZ, etc. all have excellent memory and back it up with a lifetime warranty just as Crucial does. So, if it's cheaper than Crucial, or they actually have it in stock, why not buy it? There is absolutely no reason not to.

[ghporter]

The one thing that gets my vote for Crucial, Kingston and Corsair more than the others is that if you use their configuration tools and get the part they suggest, not only do they guarantee it will work, they guarantee it will work with the computer you selected it for. That's a pretty big thing sometimes, particularly with some iBooks that had issues with what kind and density of chip was on the SODIMM.

Yep, some Macs were "special" enough to need "this particular type, not this otherwise equivalent type." Egghead will let you buy whatever you want, and won't necessarily recommend "the right part for your computer." Others won't either.