the final RAM thread? buy cheap or expensive ram?

arri

arri

Registered
hi i just can't find a defenitive answer for this question.

would anyone here be able to explain why 4Gb of ram in the apple=store costs around €/$1400,- while i can get about 40Gb of ram for the same price (ECC,CL5 kingston) around the corner?

i know there's differences in quality, and that macs sometimes don't swollow certain ram, but i have no clue what to py attention to.
for instance, according to a retailer that sells hardware specific for Macs, the ram i mentioned above should work fine in a mac pro.
i intend to fill-up my mac pro as much as possible (with ram and gpu) because of very heavy realtime grahics/crunching..
and i'm not doing rocket-science, and there's no lives depending on it, so a crash every now and then isn't the biggest disaster.

but last year, for a similair project i bought about 4 Gb extra for a G5 machine, and that ran fine for weeks.

so why this expensive ram?
what should i pay attention to?
i usually keep retailers of products intended for macs as a reference. (except ofcourse the apple store)


thanks
arri
 
i think it is mostly attributed to apple certifying the ram. They make sure that quality compnents are used in the board and that they are completey to spec. Ram is a very competitive market and other manufacturers potentially can cut corners on components as they try and make the most profit possible on such a market regulated product. I have always used 3rd party ram and as far as I know, have had no problems. Ram usually has a warranty so just make sure you get that and ram specs are the same.
 
I have the same problem. Last night, I searched to compare the list of prices. I am not finished to find the right price.

I suggest you to use these links.

http://bizrate.com
http://www.nextag.com
http://www.price.com/mac/index.html
http://www.shopcartusa.com
http://www1.pricetool.com
http://www.mysimon.com ****
http://www.dealtime.com ****
http://www.smarter.com

If you do not know which is the right ram for your computer, you can look up a company's website that makes ram to get the right information. (For example, Kingston Company) You will know which ram for you to buy on a store online.

I advise you that if a website does not show you which ram is compatible with your computer... or if you feel that something not right about the information, then do not buy it. For example, a trick information that says 2 GB, and it turned out to be 1 GB.

I feel a little bit uncomfortable purchasing it from Taiwan because I would think that it is cheap quality. But, I could be wrong about it. I would never buy it from China.
 
I use http://www.ramseeker.com/index.php to find my ram and they also have a ram finder for your mac model. by far the best comparison ram site i have used.

I have bought ram from 1800-4 memory and memorytogo who are listed there numerous times and never had a problem.
 
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