On 2010-Feb-19 10:26, Kevin McGregor wrote:
Kingston ValueRAM 4GB PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM ECC Kit (2 x 2GB)...or $40/GB at Memory Express (special order, though). Is that reasonable? Do people generally trust Kingston for RAM?
The price is reasonable, not fantastic. The PC3-1300 ram is probably cheaper, and most likely will work fine in a PC3-1060 motherboard, BTW. (Which is why PC3-1060 RAM is often special-order now.)
Trust: absolutely, yes. Kingston has a reputation of delivering better-than-OEM quality in their top-line OEM-replacement series, and I've been using their ValueRAM line consistently without problems for about 10 years now. I only know of three instances - ever - where Kingston RAM had to be returned, at which point their lifetime warranty definitely counted in their favour.
The difference between their ValueRAM line and the OEM line is essentially, they build ValueRAM "to spec" (well, actually slightly better than spec) and guarantee it'll work as intended, not necessarily in your particular motherboard; whereas the OEM stuff they build to spec and actually validate it in one or more samples of the specific targeted systems, and it's guaranteed to work in system X if they say it will.
I've noticed that some of the (expensive!) ValueRAM modules appear to be identical to the more expensive OEM-replacement modules; apparently you're paying more for the validation and warranty than for any actual difference in product.
-Adam