T60 RAM Upgrade

Hey Folks,

I ordered a T60 with 1 GB RAM (1 DIMM) and am thinking of upgrading the machine to either 2GB or 3GB. Since I plan on installing Vista Ultimate, I'm wondering whether the difference between 2 GB and 3 GB is noticeable enough that its worth it to invest in the extra 1 GB of RAM.

After reading various RAM threads/postings on the forums here, some say that the brand does not matter. However, some reviews on NewEgg have lead me to believe otherwise. One owner complained of how his OCZ 2 GB stick generally overheated and caused issues with his OEM 1 GB Lenovo included (See review here) causing him to replace the original OEM stick. Apparently at times, certain brands of RAM don't play well with each other. Therefore, is there any brand of RAM that people suggest I purchase for my T60?

 

I have a match set of 2 X 2Gb sticks from corsair. I only see 3.2Gbs under XP but i do get the benefit of dual channel. I have not had any issues thus far.

 

Well from your own account the one that was playing bad (overheating) was the OEM RAM. Here is a link to my opinions on different brands of RAM.

 

Hmm ok thanks Rasbastard, but if memory serves me correct (haha, no pun intended) I think the Intel chipset on the T60 can only recognize 3 GB of RAM so it would be pointless for me to install 4 GB of RAM even if I ostensibly got the marginal performance increase of dual channel...I'm still wondering is the performance difference between 2 GB and 3 GB of RAM big enough to warrant purchasing a 2 GB DIMM.

P.S. I won't do much, if any, gaming...Just good ol' Vista, word processing, detailed financial modeling, movie watching, and perhaps some light audio encoding (I love making remixes ).

 

Yeah but it appears (or at least one can safely assume) that the overheating of the OEM RAM was brought by the installation of the OCZ 2 GB DIMM.

So what you're essentially suggesting is that I screw the brand and go with whatever is cheapest.

 

I dont think brands make a difference for ram. Most of the non generic brands have lifetime warranty anyway. i personally use 2 sticks of crucial but thats only because they were on sale at the time. btw, if youre interested newegg has a single crucial 2gb dimm pc2-5300 that will work for the t60 for $33 after rebate which is a pretty good price imo.

 

I use Crucial but have bought other brands from time to time. Yes, you are correct, the T60 series will only only see 3GB, but the T61s will see 4GB with the appropriate OS installed. I've used Crucial/Micron, Samsung, Patriot, and others, and have pretty good luck across the board.

 

The consensus appears that brand shouldn't really matter (though Shalashashka suggested perhaps Crucial at a good price)...

But I still haven't received an answer to my one question: Does Vista performance significantly improve from 2 GB to 3 GB?

 

It is a little noticable, but for the price of ram you might s well upgade it to 3gb

 

Touche gridtalker, touche...

P.S. I wanted to thank people in the IBM/Lenovo forums for being so helpful and quick to respond. Nothing against Toshiba oweners, but I own a Toshiba as well and asked a fairly standard yet detailed question in their forums...I have only received a one line response after 2 days.

Three cheers for Thinkpadders!