The place to go for RAM
Written: Aug 20 '01
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The Bottom Line
The site to go to for most users RAM needs.
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This is indeed a rarity. A convenient site, and a brand of RAM that is suitable for all but the most demanding PC performance freaks, and the average consumer at the same time. How is this possible? Read on.
The Brand
For those of you who are not familiar with Crucial, it is the online sales presense for Micron brand RAM. Those of you who build and tweak your own PCs will know that Micron has long been associated with high quality RAM.
As a long time overclocker, about the only brands of RAM that I would say are significantly superior to Micron/Crucial are Mushkin and Corsair. However, while you can get a little extra performance out of Mushkin or Corsair in extreme overclocking situations, the price differential makes Micron worth considering for even hardcore overclockers.
One thing you must be aware of before buying high quality RAM. It is common practice for memory makers to sell excess memory chips to other vendors who will install the chips on their own Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs). A lot of times you will see a brand name RAM module like Micron or Infineon for a very attractive price. Don't be fooled, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Often times these high quality RAM chips will be installed on inferior PCBs.
The best case scenario in a situation like this is reduced performance at the extremes. The worst case scenario is system instability. With RAM prices being at historically low levels, it makes no sense to try to save a buck. Your system stability is worth more.
For example, at the time of this writing, you can buy 128MB of CAS2 PC133 RAM for 18.89. The cheapest price for 128MB of generic CAS2 PC133 on www.pricewatch.com is currently $17. When you factor in the shipping prices versus the ffree shipping that Crucial often uses as a promotion, it is more expensive to buy generic memory than quality memory.
How Good Is It?
I have made several references to Micron being quality memory. The question that comes to mind immediately is how good is it?
To understand the answer to that question, you need to understand a little bit about memory technology. I will save complete details for another article, but in general, there are a couple metrics you want to pay attention to.
One is the speed of the memory. It makes no sense to buy PC100 memory anymore. You should be buying PC133 for SDRAM motherboards, PC2400 or PC2100 (I'll explain later) for DDR motherboards, or PC800 for Pentium 4 motherboards. (RAMBUS)
Outside of clock speed, CAS latency is very important. It is key in the total bandwidth of your memory subsystem. Without getting overly technical, the number following the CAS rating tells you how many clock cycles it will take to transfer data from/to your RAM. Therefore, lower numbers are better. CAS2 takes 2 clock cycles to refresh, CAS3 takes 3 clock cycles.
CAS2 used to be very expensive, and only worthwhile for applications where performance was critical. That is no longer the case, get CAS2 memory, you will be glad you did.
But back to the how good is it question. Overclockers always push their gear to the extremes. Because we have experience tweaking hardware, we know what performs well and what doesn't. You can reasonably expect Crucial CAS2 memory purchased before Feb 2001 to be able to hit 143MHz at CAS2 latency, and between 150 and 160MHz at CAS3 latency. Newer Crucial memory seems to overclock better. I have seen several reports of CAS2 latency at 152MHz, and CAS3 latency at up to 165MHz. To put it in perspective, this is performance that only could be expected out of Mushkin Rev 3 memory in the past. (It costs about twice as much as Crucial CL2 PC133 memory)
Any downside to Crucial Memory
Yes, there are a few downsides. Currently, the fastest DDR memory Crucial sells is PC2100. You can get PC2400 from Corsair, but it is a bit pricey. In addition to having DDR that isn't the fastest available, Crucial does not sell RAMBUS memory. Therefore most Pentium 4 owners will be out of luck.
What about the store itself?
Over the past year, I have bought 2GB of RAM from Crucial in a total of 3 orders. Every time the orders were shipped quickly, packaged well, and the performance met my expectations. You can't ask for anything more. Crucial also has a lot of "free shipping" promotions. This offsets some of the sting caused by having to pay sales tax for an item ordered out of state.
For people who are not well versed in hardware, the design of the site makes it easy to get the right memory. You can navigate to the memory selection menu by giving details about your motherboard, or the model number of your PC. Crucial did an excellent job thinking out their site design.
Crucial also provides links so that you can track your order. Customer service was excellent.
Conclusion
Unless you want PC2400, or need RAMBUS, I would recommend buying RAM from Crucial. It is a quality product at an excellent price. You can't go wrong.
Recommended:
Yes
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stevelarrison
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Member: Steve Larrison
Location: Scottsdale, Az. USA
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Beer, the answer to, and the cause of all life's problems.
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