Choosing memory: Corsair, Crucial, or OCZ?

[[Dr. V]]

3 Amazing Manufacturers
3 Amazing Products
1 Final Winner

Will It Be...

Corsair XMS2 Dominator @ 4-4-4-12?

Crucial Ballistix? @ 4-4-4-12?

or OCZ Platinum Revision 2 XTC @ 4-4-4-15?

Find Out Soon Enough!!!

LMFAO i felt like one of those men announcing a huge and important tournament or something!!!

in any case it is a little mini tournament between these 3 to see who will come out on top!

DO NOT LOOK AT PRICE HERE! PRETEND THEY'RE ALL THE SAME, STRICTLY PERFORMANCE AND POWER AND OVERALL SPECS (like running cool, OCing, gaming performance comparisons, timing effectiveness and other efficiencies)

I've decided im gona pay more and particular attention on my RAM. These are 3 products i'm definitely considering extremely closely. My guess is that the Crucial Ballistix would reign supreme, but im stumped here. not sure how amazing and promising this Corsair XMS2 Dominator really is, and the OCZ is simply because Revision 2 XTC is a very well-respected product.

lets see how this one turns out guyz! thanks a lot!

should the OCZ Titanium Alpha @ 3-4-3-9 (whoa thats fast) be considered as well?

[[Dr. V]]

the Crucial Ballistix was rated a 90 overall here on HL -- that definitely has to mean something good...

a Corsair DDR2-800 kit rated 93, but it has worse timings...

[Capper]

when looking at the scores, make sure you look at the dates.....as something that rated a "93" six months ago might not be as good as something rated a "90" more recently.....technology changes.

Having said that, I'd lean toward the OCZ kits right now, they offer a great mix of performance and price......I'm in no way saying Corsair and Crucial aren't great companies, just a little pricey as compared to OCZ right now.

[[Dr. V]]

Originally Posted by Capper

when looking at the scores, make sure you look at the dates.....as something that rated a "93" six months ago might not be as good as something rated a "90" more recently.....technology changes.

Having said that, I'd lean toward the OCZ kits right now, they offer a great mix of performance and price......I'm in no way saying Corsair and Crucial aren't great companies, just a little pricey as compared to OCZ right now.

when not looking at price comparisons, where do performance gains come in within the 3 products? if OCZ is the better of the 3 sets thats fine, but if Crucial Ballistix is more but better, or Corsair, it doesn't bother me.

[Capper]

Memory is hard to really put a lot into.

First, no kit is guaranteed to run above its spec, several do, and most of what you see reviewed is cherry picked review samples.

Second, most of the memory companies get their ICs from the same source, and they typically go with the "hot" chip (meaning whats yeilding the best results). I'm personally a Corsair fan, their memory has always been the best around, albeit a bit expensive..........Think about what you are looking for, spec wise.....my advise is to get a good PC2-6400 kit, something that runns DDR2-800 @ 4-4-4-12. that will give you versatility to either run tight timings or higher frequency. By getting a good DDR2-800 kit and starting out at 533MHz, you have plent y of headroom to push your CPU as far as possible, while keeping your memory at 4-4-4-12, if not 3-3-3-9.....and to be honest....you'll be able to do it a lot cheaper and see little performance difference than if you invested in one off those extreme kits

I like to run my memory set to 533MHz and then overclock it, keeping the timings as tight as possible. In my opinion, the processor is what matters, and when overclocking I want to push it as far as possible without any issues

[[Dr. V]]

so in that case, if i can score a monitor for a good price, sell my 1GB ram right now and get an OCZ set of RAM even at 667MHz or something (if i can get it off someone a DDR2-800 set for cheap) it would be well worth it with 4-4-4-xx timings since i can push the envelope a lot more since i have room to raise some to 5 for example if need be -- that being 533MHz in BIOS, and letting the FSB control the final outcome of the RAM?

i might just do that since this 17" CRT is SO ANNOYING and i need a good 22, 23, or 24 inch monitor i can get cheap.

[Capper]

exactly.....if you can get a decent DDR2-800 kit that runs 4-4-4-12, you can also loosen the timings and get a higher overclock....but remember, the most important aspect of any OC is the processor

[[Dr. V]]

thats probably what im gonna do then.

anyone have a nice 22-24 inch monitor theyre looking to sell cheap?

=P