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    Ram Deals?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by booger, Jun 30, 2006.

  1. booger

    booger Notebook Consultant

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    I am looking to upgrade to 2 gigs of ram my Inspiron 6000. Does anybody have any recommendations for brand or know of any deals? Is there any noticible difference between PC2-4200 and PC2-5300?

    Thanks
     
  2. El-Prodigy

    El-Prodigy Notebook Consultant

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    Crucial , cosair , kingston ,and OCZ should be good and I recommend
    NewEgg.com for the best price

    PC2 5300 has a wider bandwidth comparing to PC2 4200 so technically
    it is faster
     
  3. carlislegeorge

    carlislegeorge Notebook Consultant

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    pc5400 costs more and is not as readily available but has better CAS latency than pc5300...

    of course in real world application will anyone ever notice a difference?
     
  4. fizzleation

    fizzleation Notebook Consultant

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    i don't believe it would run in dual channel either would it?
     
  5. who8mahrice

    who8mahrice Notebook Evangelist

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    OCZ has PC5400 sticks on their site labeled specifically as dual channel.
     
  6. booger

    booger Notebook Consultant

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    There is a big price difference between cosair and the other recommended. Is their ram as good as the other sugested? I can get 2 gigs for the price of 1 gig of the others. Why is there such a big price difference between all the brands. What type does dell use?

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&Subcategory=381&Description=PC2-5300&Ntk=all

    Thanks
     
  7. NOSintake

    NOSintake Notebook Evangelist NBR Reviewer

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    is there any performance difference in corsair valueselect, and the other one?

    and is there one someone should pick over the other?
     
  8. booger

    booger Notebook Consultant

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    That is basically what I am trying to find out. Is it worth spending more money? And why is there such a price difference.
     
  9. booger

    booger Notebook Consultant

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  10. mZimm

    mZimm Notebook Evangelist

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    As long as you get 2 sticks of the same stuff it will run in dual core.

    PC-5300/5400 will run at 667mhz, whereas pc4200 will run 533mhz. With a Core Duo processor you aren't going to notice a difference between the two. If you plan on upgrading to Core 2 Duo, it's probably worth spending the extra to get the 667, as the 64 bit capabilities are supposed to be able to take advantage of the extra bandwidth.

    As far as CAS latency goes; the latency of RAM is locked in the BIOS of Dell notebooks, so no matter how good RAM you get it's going to run at the same speed.

    With all of that said, it is not worth spending more money for different RAM. I'd go with the cheapest stuff personally. I went with OCZ because they had rebates going that made it cheaper than anything else at the time. Every brand will have a bad stick every once and a while, so you'll have a chance of getting a bad stick no matter what. I'd just get the cheapest brand of 2GB of 533mhz RAM, and posibly go to 667mhz if the price difference is small and you would like the extra bandwidth for the future.