Kingston VS Crucial VS Corsair

Wael Mahmoud · Nov 18, 2015

I know that all 3 brands are respected but maybe I miss something

1-Kingston HyperX FURY Black 8GB (1x8GB) DDR4 2666MHz CL15 1.2v

2-Crucial Ballistix Elite 8GB (1x8GB) DDR4 2666MHz CL16 1.2V

3-Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (1x8GB) DDR4 2400MHz C14 1.2V

Which one Should I go for ?? (They are all the same price)

UPDATE : I will use i5-6600K with Z170x-Gaming 3 for gaming....and I can't find any 2X4 kit at all (egprices.com) .......Can I add an identical one in the future for dual channel ?

faalin · Nov 18, 2015

Go for the kingston ram 2666Mhz cl15 is slightly better then 2400 cl14

horsemeAT · Nov 18, 2015

The Corsair vengeance LPX has the lowest Cas. i would say that, since other than the Cas, they're all pretty much the same.

UPDATE: I didn't see that the vengeance is a different speed, so out of the other two, the Kingston has the lower Cl go with that

rar_54 · Nov 18, 2015

Crucial is the only vendor that actually manufactures their own chips since it is the consumer brand for Micron Technology. Which means they have much greater quality control. I have never had a stick of Crucial memory fail but can't say the same about the others.

Karadjgne · Nov 18, 2015

Kingston has the lowest failure rate of the 3.

Considering the relative unimportance of speed and timings with on-die mc's at this performance level, the only tangible difference in the 3 is price and OC ability. Since it's relatively pointless to OC any of the ram at this level of usage, out of the 3, the best ram will be the cheapest. And since you say they are the same price, pick the one you like the looks of or matches your color scheme.

martinch · Nov 18, 2015

rar_54 :

Personally, I've never had a problem with Corsair memory (when I saw an article on failure rates, circa 2005, they had the lower return-and-test-faulty rate of any of the mainstream manufacturers, although this was 10 years ago and therefore may well not be valid). I know a fair few people who, like you, swear by Crucial, too.

Karadjgne · Nov 18, 2015

Micron is one of the world's largest manufacturers of ram, no doubt, but just because you make a lot of ram doesn't necessarily mean that it's the best performing. Look at crucial ssds, solid performance, good reliability, yet end up, with few exceptions, closer to the bottom of the pile when it comes to read/write speeds. And an SSD is flash memory made in house.

In my years I've dealt with most all of the big brands at some time or another, and I've never replaced failed crucial ram. I still have some pc100 that works just fine. But it can be a little picky as to the compatability with some mobo's. Corsair? Well I'll just leave it at that.

Kingston? I've never seen Kingston ram not be compatible, with anything. I've never seen failed sticks, I've had Kingston sticks get soaked in a pc fire and still work after and I've talked with a rep, here on this site, who was an absolute sweetheart and took no time to dig up an answer for the op. (how much ram can my Sony laptop use). If for nothing else, a vendor rep surfing this site, helping answer questions would bias me towards that brand faster than anything. The fact they use solid performance ram at the top end of the group doesn't hurt either.

Tradesman1 · Nov 18, 2015

Is this for 2011 rig or an 1151 - either way wouldn't go with a single stick - on 1151(i.e. Z170) would be better to go with 2x4GB so you can enable dual channel which can be up to 10-15% performance increase, with the 2011 socket would at a minimum gogo with two sticks (again dual channel) but the 2011/x99 is capable of full quad channel. And buy all the DRAM you get in a single package to ensure they are tested to play nice - getting a single stick now you have no guarantees it will play with additional purchases (even same exact model) in the future

Wael Mahmoud · Nov 19, 2015

Karadjgne :

Actually I am worried about (Compatibility) ...............I will buy i5-6600K and I will have to use Intel's XMP to run Ram at 2666MHz.

At Kingston Site it mentions that kingston hyper x is compatibile with XMP ,But I don't know if the others (Especially Crucial) are compatibile too.

Wael Mahmoud · Nov 19, 2015

Tradesman1 :

This is for 1151 ........I have 4 DIMMS on the MB......the problem is that I can't find 2X4 at all so I decided to pick 8GB now then after while I will pick another identical one .

Here is the site I buy from (It's like Amazon here in Egypt) http://www.egprices.com/en/category/computers/memory

Wael Mahmoud · Nov 19, 2015

rar_54 :

ok , but will the crucial one be compatibile with Intel 's XMP ?? or skylake can handle 2666 without overclocking ?

Karadjgne · Nov 19, 2015

They all have xmp profiles. Default speed of most ddr4 is 2133MHz, so any speeds above that will require xmp profiles.

If you have any doubts whatsoever about which ram to choose (since they are basically equitable) check the motherboard QVL (qualified vendor list) and it will list all the ram that has been officially tested as stable for use on that board.

Wael Mahmoud · Nov 19, 2015

Karadjgne :

Thank you very much ; It is the first time I hear about QVL . ... I found the Ram in the motherboard QVL table :pt1cable:

But I have a last question ,what is meant by native speed....as my Crucial ram has native speed of 2400 while every single other 2666 rams have native speed of 2133........Is that a good thing ?

Thanks in advance

Karadjgne · Nov 19, 2015

That's the default speed. As I said, most ddr4 is 2133MHz, but some ddr4 has an actual speed of 1600MHz, so not only has no xmp, its default speed is 1600MHz. All it really means is when you first apply the ram, at boot, its set to start up at 2133MHz or 2400MHz. And it'll stay that way until you decide to go into bios and either enable an xmp (the 2666 will probably have 2-3 xmp possible options, the crucial starting at 2400 will have just 1 at 2666) or manually set a speed. It's neither good nor bad, its just whatever the manufacturer feels like setting the rams 'natural', 'native', 'default' speed at.

The jadec tables will allow you to run the ram at 'low', default is 'standard' and xmp is 'performance' mode basically. So manufacturers sell ram according to what it 'can' do, not what it actually does out of the box.

OC is a variable, has no guaranteed limits, so is not accounted for in any component, be it ram or cpu or gpu.

rar_54 · Nov 19, 2015

Wael Mahmoud :

The Crucial web site has a resource that picks the correct RAM for you and they guarantee the memory to work or your money back.

Karadjgne · Nov 20, 2015

Yeah, i tried that. Out of 93 results for my mobo, 5 were 32Gb, 13 were 16Gb and the rest were a mix of 2-8Gb kits most of which were 4Gb. Not what I'd call an upgrade. You don't want to add ram, mix kits. Especially high performance stuff like ddr4 and the high speed ddr3. In a newer pc, a minimum upgrade should be an 8 Gb kit. Period. Why I'd want to add a 256x64 2Gb stick of 1600MHz ram on a z77 mobo with 16Gb of 1866 is beyond me. Yeah, that tool is semi useless. It's nothing more than an automated version of the MSI QVL for my board, with all other vendors removed.

Wael Mahmoud · Nov 20, 2015

Karadjgne :

That's the default speed. As I said, most ddr4 is 2133MHz, but some ddr4 has an actual speed of 1600MHz, so not only has no xmp, its default speed is 1600MHz. All it really means is when you first apply the ram, at boot, its set to start up at 2133MHz or 2400MHz. And it'll stay that way until you decide to go into bios and either enable an xmp (the 2666 will probably have 2-3 xmp possible options, the crucial starting at 2400 will have just 1 at 2666) or manually set a speed. It's neither good nor bad, its just whatever the manufacturer feels like setting the rams 'natural', 'native', 'default' speed at.

The jadec tables will allow you to run the ram at 'low', default is 'standard' and xmp is 'performance' mode basically. So manufacturers sell ram according to what it 'can' do, not what it actually does out of the box.

OC is a variable, has no guaranteed limits, so is not accounted for in any component, be it ram or cpu or gpu.

Thank you very much

Karadjgne · Nov 20, 2015

No worries. ☺

horsemeAT · Nov 20, 2015

Is there any way i can quit getting notifications from this discussion

Karadjgne · Nov 20, 2015

Top of the page is 2 exits, but they only show on pc, not mobile.

Kingston VS Crucial VS Corsair

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