Some questions about G.Skill RAM

achensherd

December 10, 2006 7:27:03 AM

I'm considering getting a pair of 1GB G.Skill DDR2 PC6400 RAM (F2-6400CL4D-2GBPK), and I have some questions that hopefully someone(s) can answer:

1. I've heard that G.Skill's support is very good, but are their products reliable?

2. How often does RAM go bad, assuming no/light overclocking? How about G.Skill's, compared to ones by Crucial, Corsair, etc.?

3. Are there any known compatibility issues between G.Skill RAM and Abit motherboards? (Abit NF-M2 in my case)

4. When are RAM prices going back down to what they were, say, a year or so ago?

Thanks.

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Mondoman

December 10, 2006 6:30:37 PM

(answers assume you are not talking about "value" lines)

Quote:

...
1. I've heard that G.Skill's support is very good, but are their products reliable?

In general, all RAM is EXTREMELY reliable, just like CPUs and other all-solid-state components. G.Skill is no different.
Please note that reliability is different from quality control. Almost all problems people have with RAM (assuming no OCing or other abuse) is DOA modules, which falls under quality control.

Quote:

2. How often does RAM go bad, assuming no/light overclocking? How about G.Skill's, compared to ones by Crucial, Corsair, etc.?

Almost never, all are pretty much the same for *reliability*. Quality control between companies/models can vary substantially. Crucial and Corsair are generall considered to be tops in quality control and compatibility. OCZ also has excellent quality control, but emphasizes performance, so tends to be a bit less compatible. My impression of G.Skill is "above average".

Quote:

3. Are there any known compatibility issues between G.Skill RAM and Abit motherboards? (Abit NF-M2 in my case)

It's very unlikely that you will have a compatibility problem, but if that is your major worry, buy Corsair, Kingston, or Crucial.

Quote:

4. When are RAM prices going back down to what they were, say, a year or so ago?

14:56 UT April 17th, 2007.

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achensherd

December 11, 2006 6:59:04 AM

Thanks for the info, and yes, I'm not looking for "value" RAM. The G.Skill PK series I'm looking at is (I'm assuming) at least mid-range, or close to mid-range, in their line.

April, 2007, huh? Man, I can't wait that long -- it's bad enough that I only have 512MB of DDR2 533 for a AMD64 3800+ that shares memory with the integrated graphics.

A few more questions, about memtest86:

1. memtest86 or memtest86+? Is + better?

2. so I let it run a cycle for an hour or so?

3. if I get any errors then that means I have bad RAM worthy of an RMA?

4. there shouldn't be any problems in general, right?

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Anonymous

Memory Expert

December 11, 2006 2:35:51 PM

I did not know the difference between the two. From Memtest+

Quote:

Based on the well-known original memtest86 written by Chris Brady, memtest86+ is a port by some members of the x86-secret team. Our goal is to provide an up-to-date and completly reliable version of this software tool aimed at memory failures detection.

Memtest86+ is, like the original, released under the terms of the Gnu Public License (GPL). No restrictions for use, private or commercial exist other than the ones mentioned in the Gnu Public License (GPL). Texts about the original version was taken from the original website and written by Chris Brady.

I would go with memtest+.

I would let it run for more then 2h, say 8h-10h

If theree is any error, you might want to try to play with timing/voltage and so on, see if you can 'tweak' them out, if you can't then yeah RMA

Hopefully not! g.sKILL is solid.

Price should not come down anytime soon. Only way it will is with lower demand, with the C2D going so well and AMD also on DDR2, should not happen anytime soon. Even with the release of DDR3 I think we'll have to wait a while!

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