Ram - It's What's for Supper.

So. I'm sitting around here thinking over my RAM options (I've since decided against ECC RAM, for anyone who has been following my other threads much). While sitting around, I decided to take some time and use the trusty "search" feature on NBR. What I find, instead, is a convoluted mess of dissagreeing statements. Mostly from mid 2005-2007. As such, I not only came out feeling confused, but came out wondering if what I learned hadn't become "outdated" knowledge in this time period. So, ready or not, here are some "conflicting" questions of the ages (ages = 4 year stretch of time, lol).

1. Will your motherboard FSB limit your RAM FSB to the same #?
Many say yes. Others say no. Many cite examples of how it does work. Many rebuttle saying "it's because they OC'd the motherboard". The counter-rebuttle is, "no they didn't". Lol.

2. Does OCing RAM have much benefit?
There are threads around stating how it is done. But the same arguement from question #1 reoccurs, stating it is a waste. For example, I've seen some people remark that the Intel P965 chipset (used in the Sager 9262/Clevo D901C) caps the ram at 667MHz. Yet, I can't imagine why all the major retailers (xotic, power, falcon, pcm, etc) would offer 800MHz options, if this were truly the case. This is just one example.

3. Manufacturers. Does it pay to pick and choose? Who/why? Does it pay to do it yourself over retailer-stock? Isn't it all re-branded (for the most part) anyhow?
Most are in agreement that the quality of the major brands (OCZ, Kingston, Corsair, etc) are all equal. As all the latencies/fsbs are the same. Yet, this question still keep arising. Why? The best I can think of is heat spreaders (then again), but should that concern those who aren't overclocking their RAM? Hmmm. Last reason I can think of is lifetime warranties, which I do believe all the major known brands (again OCZ, Kingston, Corsair, etc) should offer.

4. Where is the guide!? Ha-ha, yes, this was the TRUE intent of my posting this. Mwuhaha.
I'm definitely not the guy to make a guide on this (many of you know far more than I even want to know, ha-ha). But, I've seen little questions arise here and there with varying degrees of advice offered. Things get further complicated when 1-Soddim/DDR2/DDR3/ECC/etc come into play. There is a good DDR2 explanation (thanks to Powerpack) in the Hardware General Info Sticky (Kudos to Chaz). Yet, many of these other questions, which, as far as I can tell, are not overly complicated (not as much as undervolting, overclocking, self-painting, etc) and could be sorted out by someone. Who's up to the task! You can this area, perhaps, as a start-ground to get the facts straight. Then, someone can just start-up a thread and make it all scientifically accurate for the rest. It should be more beneficial than the RAM Poll that was included in the sticky, at the very least.

Here are some general "Guides" I came accross, which I felt were worth mentioning (some recent, some not). Just to get the ball rolling:
Notebook Memory (RAM) Guide by PULP (11-07-2005)
Notebook RAM Buying Guide by Powerpack (10-18-2007)
Testing your RAM with Memtest86+ by Orev (07-17-2007)
HOW TO: Install RAM on your DELL Notebook by Sirius_GTO (06-11-2007)

 

That's a marketing fact, most of the consumers doesn't know that chipset capped it at 667MHz.

 

Yeah DaMarcus is right.

Why they offer it? because people want it and it makes them more profit.

 

Hmmm, odd.... I posted like 2-4 hours ago, I come back and my post is missing? Lol. It showed it go in....hrmm.... Anyhow, I'll re-post my thoughts, I guess.

DaMarcus/PhilFlow
So it IS a conspiracy! Taking advantage of the unknowledgable consumer! Pfft. However, this is a bit confusing. For, why would people OC their RAM beyond motherboard capabilities? Surely if they are knowledgable enough to OC and test their RAM OCs, then they would realize there is little point? Unless they are all doing tests that don't show real-world advantages or they are all OCing their motherboard first. I can't see why these "knowledgable" folk would bother. It certainly hurts the RAM (warranties, heating, voltage, life-expectancy).

Everyone
Shouldn't there be a stickied RAM guide (include it in the sticky, rather)? We could utilize the ones above, or better yet compile everything we know into one guide (who is up to this task? Lol). It would stop a lot of people from re-asking these questions (like me, ha-ha). The order of trying to find information for most people is to post first (unfortunate). But, there are some good ones who will read the stickies first, before posting (some of them will even do a SEARCH!) Unfortunately, the sticky holds no benefit (beyond DDR2 discussion) and the searching feature provides a myriad of different responses from through-out the years. Certainly can't hurt to get a revised thread up in the sticky.

 

The AMD M690 mobile chipset - released late 2006 - does support 800 MHz DDR2 RAM. So there is a point to 800 MHz laptop RAM right now - but it certainly does happen that people buy it for Intel systems not knowing it won't help them any more than 667 MHz DDR2 will.

And now I'm off to eat something other than RAM for supper. I may be hungry, but it still doesn't sound appetizing!

 

Wait, isnt it: beef, its what's for dinner

The d901c can only accept 667Mhz memory, since that is the maximum speed which intel chipsets can take at this time.
You can get pc6400 to run at full speed if you have an AMD based laptop, its integrated memory controller speeds up the bandwidth of the memory tremendously.
AS far as I know, you cant get ecc memory for laptops. ECC modules are extremely expensive in comparison to standard dimms, so it is not worth it unless you are running a server, where stability is crucial.

You can modify your memory timings with programs like memset, but be careful, you can brick your laptop if you do not know what you are doing.

You must realize that the speed of your memory is not the bottleneck on your laptop. Having faster memory, will not speed up your system much at all.

Lets play the manufacturer's game.
First off, corsair, kingston and so forth do not make their memory cells, they use memory made from one of the 5 memory cell manufacturers.
The top 5 memory manufacturers are Qimonda, Samsung Electronics (SEC), Micron, El-Pida (they are copartenered, I cant remember who they are partnered with at the moment) and Hynix.
AS in most memory cards, they pretty much always use samsung or hynix memory cells. However their is a better memory cell, and they are the micron cells. Micron is almost always at the highest end for memory manufacturing. they deploy their products later than the rest, because they perfect the memory cell, making it as fast as possible, with a more efficient linkage between the data cells.
In order to get the faster micron cells, you will need to buy crucial or patriot memory, since both of them are divisions of micron technologies.

The main thing when buying memory is getting a lifetime warranty, cause you never know when your memory will fail.
Most people are brand junkies, and buy the more expensive corsair and such, but those people are just giving their brand opinons.

Go with crucial memory and you cant go wrong.

K-TRON

 

Very well written K-TRON. I'd read of the rebranding with Qimonda/Samsung/etc into Kingston/Corsair/etc.
You taught me something new in regards to "micron", however. I'll be sure to look into that more further. No worries on the ECC, I wasn't planning on getting it ultimately, anyhow. I was just caught up in the moment regarding ECC, ha-ha.
Windows and games = eat up RAM. My play on words, since I figure many reading this (not all) or on Win Xp/Vista. So, they're eating their RAM just reading these sentences, lol. I was originally going to call it Ram-A-Lot...but I thought the title might be too misleading and frowned upon.