RAM Brand matters?

Hey, I was wondering how much the Brand of RAM matters? Are there sketchy brands to stay away of? Which are the best? I think I'm gonna be putting a 2gb stick into my Asus V1S (DDR2 SDRAM - 667 MHz), any recommendations on what RAM to get (cheap)?
Thanks!

 

Stick with the well know brands (Corsair, Kingston, G.Skill, Transcend)

Check out the RAM deals, prices might be outdated but you should see your choices there. They should be much cheaper now.

Newegg.com seems to be a great place for RAM

 

for notebook ram.. the cheapest you can find is exactly the same as the most expensive. The lower timings that mushkin, gskill, and the like have, have close to zero actual impact.

 

unless you're planning on overclocking...then voltage and timings become important.

 

true.. but not many people overclock ram

 

Try to buy branded RAM, but if you can’t find them for a reasonable price, then unbranded RAM is OK too. In any case the actual memory chips are made by only few companies, therefore even on those unbranded RAM modules you get branded memory chips, only the PCB (circuit board) and few trivial components are put together by the RAM company. Cheap PCBs can cause some problems, but the chances are low. Also they might not overclock well like mentioned above.

 

ram is a generic product, but some brands still slightly better than others,
samsung and hynix is the best. transcend is ok.
but then, it all comes down to cost, the cheaper the better.

 

the memory is generic. Their are basically five main memory manufacturers (micron technology, SEC, Hynix, Qimonda and elpida) All of them manufacture about 99% of all memory chips used on memory cards. Is their a difference?
Well no their is not a difference for the most part.
In a laptop system, one would not notice any difference in performance between say a 4gb kit of Pc4200 (533Mhz) and a 4gb kit of pc8500 (1066Mhz).
For memory manufacturers, please make sure that the memoy you by comes with a lifetime warranty. Memory s simply not made like it used to be. I have probably 200 desktop memory cards in my basement from PC3200 and before, and I never found a corrupt memory cell. As of the mast two years or so, I have come across a few memory errors, even from my favorite brand Corsair.
So the company you by from is not really important, unless it is to you. If you want corsair or crucial, or gskill, than go for that.
It is just important that the company is reputable and will replace your product in a decent amount of time if it were to fail.

Personally, I only use Corsair and Crucial, because they mainly use the Micron high performance memory chips or the lower latency Qimonda ones. Plus crucial and corsair manufacture their memory cards in the USA, which is mainly why I by from them. I am a nationalist, so it makes a difference to me.

K-TRON

 

I've used both brand-name and no-name ram in laptops and haven't noticed ANY difference. With desktops and heavy overclocking, better memory does have it's advantages, but these just aren't present in notebooks.

As previously mentioned, go with a brand name if it's available at a good price. Otherwise, go with whatever looks like the best deal.

 

I usually buy the cheapest I can get. Never had a problem.

 

I pretty much buy 100% Mushkin. Corsair and Crucial are also fantastic brands.

While it's true that the actual memory ICs are only made by a handful of companies, the problems that chips often have are from poor manufacturing for the overall system... the PCB, the layout, the materials, et cetera. So, there are brand names that I personally avoid, such as Kingston (it's so-so at best), Patriot, A-Data, and Wintec.

I'm not sure if Mushkin manufactures in the US, but they are a US company. I've been using almost 100% Mushkin memory in my gaming rigs for years (since the first "Black" Line) and purchased 2GB SO-DIMM of Mushkin for my wife's Eee PC, which works great. As soon as I can, I'll be replacing the memory in my HP HDX 16t with Mushkin. In fact, the only other RAM I've used in the past few years was OCZ... which was also quite nice!

 

I just go to newegg and buy the cheapest name brand they have. I don't think I'll ever notice any difference.

 

Um, yes? FSB is almost directly related to RAM. When you overclock the FSB, you overclock the RAM (and the CPU).

+1. I've never noticed any difference (besides maybe overclocking potential) between RAM manufacturers. I just go for the cheapest.