RAM - - Viking and Corsair

[JoeM076]

I currently have 2GB's of Viking RAM in my computer, and since I have Windows Vista and want to prepare for the upcoming PC games coming out like Bioshock and Crysis, I am thinking about getting another 2GB's of RAM.

- I have an ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe motherboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...1031&Tpk=ASUS+P5N32-SLI+SE+Deluxe+motherboard

...and I was wondering if I get XMS2 DDR2 RAM, which my motherboard says it is ready for, will it work together with my other RAM, or will there be compatibility issues? Also, are there any other issues I have to take into consideration when doing this?

- Here is some RAM I am thinking about getting:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145590

- Also, is Viking a bad company to get RAM from?
- Do you suggest any others?
- Thank you if you took the time out to read this thread.

 

[raybay]

The enemy of good is better.
It is always wise to assure that all module are identical. Corsair is really Samsung and makes most, but not all, of the memory with the Corsair label. Still, you want to read the reviews. Viking is a "maker" of memory but do not make their own chips.

Best memory manufacturers Crucial, Samsung (Corsair), Infineon, and Kingston... but none of them make all of the memory sold under their labels.

There are 54 other manufacturers who specialize in certain sizes at various qualities. You have not way to know which are manufacturers, Assemblers, Makers, Suppliers, or Scammers. Too many companies make memory modules from tubs of chips that may come from a number of manufacturers. The buy does the quality control, then gets a replacement under warranty when they fail.
Some of the most highly marketed memory under such names as OCZ, PNY, SimpleTech, Ultra, and so on, varies from month to month. And their quality is similarly suspect.

 

[JoeM076]

Thanks for the response, but do you have any other answers or suggestions to my other questions?

 

[raybay]

Like what?
Get the best memory you can afford, and as much of it identical as possible. I don't think Viking is anywhere close to the quality of Corsair, Crucial, Infineon, IBM, Kingston, or Toshiba.

But Viking will work... When all memory you have, or get, is grouped together all of it will work at the speed of the slowest module.
Do NOT use Viking Value Ram or Value Select Ram as it is significantly slower than other memory. If you can afford the best, get Crucial, but if you have slow Viking, and fast Crucial or Corsair, it will all work at the speed of the slow Viking.

As for the Ciorsair XMS2 DDR2 RAM, The 1GB XMS2-8500 TwinX memory kit is Corsair's fastest dual-channel DDR2 memory kit. In fact, it's the first DDR2 memory kit to ship with an effective clock speed of 1066MHz for Intel platforms that support a 1066MHz FSB. Nowadays, there are a lot of companies that make it. Crucial and Kingston are equal to or better than Corsair.

With the Corsair push achieve high clock rates, a few compromises had to be made. Corsair reportedly had to use a high latency of 5-5-5-15. This is certainly no low-latency module. If you are looking for low-latency, then you will need to shop further.

Those modules had a capacity of 512MB, giving the memory kit a total capacity of 1GB. Perhaps it has been boosted to 1 GB now. Since this memory kit is targeted at power users and enthusiasts, the limited capacity will definitely be a concern as it limits users to 2GB of memory with four DIMM slots (unless memory size has been changed and I missed it). Gamers, photoshop folks, and various graphics editors have long since headed for for 2GB of memory. So I would be looking at Corsair or Kingston.

Corsair's new flagship DDR2 memory kit which we are discussing has been showing up with the old XMS heatspreaders. We certainly expected them to use the newer and larger XMS heatspreaders with activity LEDs. That would have added more value to these modules, even though they are not targeted at case modders.

But I think heat spreaders are mainly a gimick. Test and indepth reviews show that heat spreaders don't change things much. Although they give the board a great look if you have a glass door on your computer.

Corsair gets kudos for hitting the 1GHz clock speed before anybody else. This enables you to run the memory bus in synchrony with the front side bus, even with Intel processors that support a 1066MHz FSB.

Corsair memory has come down in price, but is still not cheep. But if you can afford an Intel Pentium 4 EE system that runs at 1066MHz FSB, you can probably afford a handfull of these Corsair memory kits.

Do I still owe you some answers?

 

[JoeM076]

Haha, thank you for the plethora of answers.

 

[Tedster]

https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic65114.html

 

[JoeM076]

Very informative, thank you!