is all computer memory equal?

So long as it's from a reliable source then I've had no problems.

By reliable I mean a know brand or from a dependable retailer not off the back of a lorry.

However if you wish to overclock your machine then some brands are better than others

In theory, it should be; in reality, sometimes it's not. Since I had such problems (memory not 'recognized' by the board) I always use Kingston or Infineon and one brand only.

In one case it helped to rip out all the memory, putting in one piece a time with switching on and off in between. In another case an additional piece of RAM wouldn't let the computer boot up at all.

Nowerdays I don't mix them anymore as I really hate such problems. ;-)

Corsair Twin X DDR Memory is the current 'Naim' of memory. Pricey at £230 a chuck, but it's what the extreme overclocking hardcore gamers use as nothing else keeps up.

Unless you want to overclock or have some unusual requirements, I'd always get Crucial.

Cheap enough, free delivery, and guaranteed compatible.

cheers,
Paul

Jez Quigley said

quote:

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Corsair Twin X DDR Memory is the current 'Naim' of memory. Pricey at £230 a chuck, but it's what the extreme overclocking hardcore gamers use as nothing else keeps up.

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Corsair is very good memory, but there is another brand which is just as quick if not quicker according to some benchmarks on the web, it's OCZ
It comes in many flavours and prices to suit your needs.

Regards
Clive

Joe the word on the DPReview Mac tools forum is that one should go for a reliable well named brand that will ensure that the memory will perform to the specifications. Crucial is often spoken of favourably

Derek

<< >>

Thanks Clive. I'd not heard of OCZ.
Crucial I agree is more than good enough for 'normal' use and cheaper than Corsair, but Corsair has that 'I want' factor - some acheivement in the otherwise dull world of RAM

You read all the reviews, you ask your friends and then buy something that looks fast.

Joe, the important thing to remember is that a Mac with a 1GZ processor and 512MB RAM will work better than a PC with double or triple that.

Alex,

Joe works in a university where the people are clever and used to dealing with complexity. It's not like he's dealing with a bunch of meeja creatives with drug addled brains and Media Studies degrees who need their computer experience reduced to series of simple choices presented in attractive cartoon colours.

Matthew

quote:

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Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
Alex,

Joe works in a university where the people are clever and used to dealing with complexity. It's not like he's dealing with a bunch of meeja creatives with drug addled brains and Media Studies degrees who need their computer experience reduced to series of simple choices presented in attractive cartoon colours.

Matthew

---

Or ... "as i understand computers I want them to stay complex and bug prone so that I can keep my feeling of superiority over the rest of the population who just want something that works"

Spot on Matthew, I work in the Art, Media and Design Dept of a University - Hell on Earth.

Unlike the IT and Engineering departments though, I bet it's full of cool chicks.

Matthew

Excuse my ignorance, but what is "overclocking"? Is it installing RAM that's faster than the computer requires?



__________________________________________

Matthew,

quote:

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Joe works in a university where the people are clever and used to dealing with complexity. It's not like he's dealing with a bunch of meeja creatives with drug addled brains and Media Studies degrees who need their computer experience reduced to series of simple choices presented in attractive cartoon colours.

---

Half of the people I work with at the university sound (and look) like Foghorn Leghorn, that southern rooster of Warner Brothers fame, so I think they would rather appreciate their computer experience being reduced to series of simple choices presented in attractive cartoon colours.



Joe

quote:

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Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
It's not like he's dealing with a bunch of meeja creatives with drug addled brains and Media Studies degrees who need their computer experience reduced to series of simple choices presented in attractive cartoon colours.

---

Ha ha ha - I'm not saying a word about Macs (though, based on this comment, maybe I should ditch the PC and move over to Mac???).

How the hell can using one mouse button, then having a user need to press a key while using mouse button for other options be user friendly though? Never got that one!

Is Corsair that good then? I just bought some with my new PC bits and got it for the "lifetime guarantee" - but if it can be overclocked...

Overclocking = purposely speeding up a CPU etc above its rated speed. Personally, I'd not bother with it. I'd rather have a slower, temperature-efficient machine that's working inside its design parameters, rather than pay less on a CPU to get a given speed, while paying out the price differential on super-dooper fans and kit tweaks to run that chip over its designed speed.

Or is that just me who sees overclocking as a total waste of time???

Now if someone can tell me why my PC's taking so long to boot into XP, I'd love to know...

__________________________
Don't wanna be cremated or buried in a grave
Just dump me in a plastic bag and leave me on the pavement
A tribute to your modern world, your great society
I'm just another victim of your highrise fantasy!

quote:

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Excuse my ignorance, but what is "overclocking"? Is it installing RAM that's faster than the computer requires?

---

Not quite if you put in memory thats rated higher than the FSB on the motherboard it will only work at the rated speed of the board. Overclocking requires tweaking the BIOS a little to increase CAS lantency timings and a few other things, voltage etc....
Corsair and OCZ are the best for this, they tend to be used by the hardcore tweaking and gaming enthusiasts, because of the quality and stability of the chips.

Regards
Clive

"How the hell can using one mouse button, then having a user need to press a key while using mouse button for other options be user friendly though?"

Becuase the restriction makes for simpler interfaces and emphaises that, in a well desinged UI, secondary click functions should be a last resort.

A key design concept for Macs is to make the most likely thing a user might want to do very obvious and make it work by clicking or dragging something with the single button. Apple would argue that if the user needs to right click and then choose again you have already gone wrong in your understanding of the problem.

Matthew

quote:

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Your other name isn't fox is it?

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Why do you ask Cliff? It's not anyway!

Regards
Clive

Matthew, a part of Hell on earth is being forty something and doubtless rather less attractive to cool chicks than one would like to think, and married to boot. I struggle to remain a Senior Lecturer without becoming a Senior Lecherer.

Clive, Cliff...

quote:

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Overclocking requires tweaking the BIOS a little to increase CAS lantency timings and a few other things, voltage etc....

---

quote:

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Overclocking is running the memory/cpu or whatever at a higher speed than its rated speed.

On some PCs (eg those sold by overclockers) the bios allows you to tweak the speed of the chip and/or memory.

---

Thanks. I've never heard Mac guys go on about overclocking, so I don't know if it's impossible to overclock a Mac or if most users are too gormless to know how to do it. (I fall into the latter category.)
_______________________________________________


Dom,

quote:

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How the hell can using one mouse button, then having a user need to press a key while using mouse button for other options be user friendly though? Never got that one!

---

You're right. It's *less* user friendly than using a two-button mouse, but that doesn't mean that Macs can't use two-button mice. It's just that Apple doesn't make them. (I bought a two-button, scroll-wheeled mouse the other week for my Mac at home and it works just as my Logitech mouse on my PC at work does -- left clicking, right clicking, scrolling, etc.)
_______________________________________________


Matthew,

quote:

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Apple would argue that if the user needs to right click and then choose again you have already gone wrong in your understanding of the problem.

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That's probably the official company position, but I suspect Steve Jobs is simply being intransigent that the PC world improved on the invention they borrowed.

_______________________________________________

Cliff,

quote:

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Its all about the money

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For Mac heads, it's all about the style. ;-)

Joe, user of PCs by day, Mac user by night...

[This message was edited by Joe Petrik on Tue 05 October 2004 at 16:57.]

"user of PCs by day, Mac user by night..."

Yet more evidence, if any were needed, that Macs are more eviler than PCs.

Matthew

Matthew,

quote:

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Yet more evidence, if any were needed, that Macs are more eviler than PCs.

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Where do Silicon Graphics machines sit on the good/evil continuum? They sure look like the work of the devil.

Here's the SGI Tezro... clearly evil incarnate in purple.

Joe

Purple's the giveaway -- SGI are almost certainly part of the Illuminati global Catholic conspiracy and thus Evil.

I think you'll find that SGI owners are the sort of people who own kittens (which are obviously vectors for all types of Evil too unspeakable to mention).

Matthew

Good grief, I can remember when SGI made beautiful machines, that looks like a melted-down Barney the dinosaur (not such a bad idea in itself, but moulding a computer out of the results is probably not a good thing).

-- Ian

The Lexx / SGI special edition 790, now that is Evil