Buyer's Guide: Mid-Range to High-End, May 2005

Memory Recommendations

We commented in our last Budget Guide how quickly RAM prices have plummeted. To illustrate the point, you could now purchase a PC with 2 GB of RAM for the same price that 1 GB of RAM cost in late 2004. We won't actually recommend 2 GB in this Guide, but if you do a lot of memory intensive work, then it's certainly something to think about. As for the recommendations, keep in mind your motherboard purchase when looking at the memory. If you went with our recommendations, everything besides the MSI P8N SLI motherboard uses DDR RAM. However, DDR2 boards for Intel are relatively common, and the price is such that some people might prefer DDR2 instead of DDR. Considering that most future Intel platforms will require DDR2 and even AMD appears to be heading that direction, we wouldn't automatically discount DDR2 anymore.

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Mid-Range DDR Recommendation
Memory: 2x512MB OCZ Premier
Price: $84 Shipped

Simply put, $84 for 1 GB of 2.5-3-3-7 RAM is an incredible deal. OCZ Premier RAM gets our pick this time, but as always, you can find similar products from Corsair, Crucial, GEIL, Kingston, Mushkin, and many others. There's little point in getting any of the generic brands, as the price difference is all but gone these days. Get memory from someone that you recognize with a lifetime warranty, and you should be fine. If you can find the manufacturer listed in our Pricing Engine, we're comfortable recommending the RAM.

As we said above, you could even get 2 GB of RAM for $168, which should fulfill the needs of all but the most demanding of users for quite some time. If you need more than that, you might want to take a look at the 1 GB DIMMs. They're still quite a bit more expensive than the same amount of RAM in 512MB DIMMs, but prices are to the point where it's actually feasible to run 4x1GB in a system. $440 will get you 4 GB of PC3200 RAM from either Kingston or Mushkin, for example.

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High-End DDR Recommendation
Memory: 2x512MB OCZ EL Platinum Rev 2
Price: $188 Shipped

We're going to provide a DDR alternative recommendation for those looking at increased performance and/or overclocking. With all our talk of overclocking in the previous sections, we felt that it was important to include some appropriate memory for the task. (Besides, it's been a while since we did an overclocking guide.) Our recommendation goes to a long-time favorite, the OCZ Rev. 2 Platinum. While the price increase is quite drastic, it's worth mentioning that this same RAM cost as much as $275 just a few months back. It uses Samsung TCCD memory blanks binned for low latency as well as high clock speeds (all TCCD blanks are rated at PC4000). By dropping the timings to 2.5-3-3-7 or even 3-4-4-8, some have managed to reach bus speeds over 300 MHz. The rest of the system - motherboard, CPU, PSU, etc. - will often play a role in determining the realizable clock speed, but this RAM will at least get you started.

If you've read some of our memory articles, you might also be interested in the OCZ PC4000 VX RAM, which can run 2-2-2-8 timings at DDR500, provided that you have a system capable of supplying the required 3.3V. It costs quite a bit more and it isn't as likely to reach high bus speeds as the Rev. 2 Platinum, but overall performance is often better at the same clock speed. If you're using a high-end CPU, 300 MHz bus speeds aren't likely to be necessary, and some people are willing to pay for increased performance at more typical bus speeds. The VX RAM fills this niche market.

Note: We have received comments that OCZ is no longer using Samsung TCCD blanks for the above RAM. While we have not verified this, we encourage interested buyers to do so. There are many other manufacturers that use TCCD RAM and provide similar performance to the OCZ Rev. 2 Platinum. Corsair, PQI, G.Skill and others can easily be found. We'd normally take 2-2-2 timings at DDR400 over RAM that's rated for higher speeds with higher timings, but some people prefer maximum clock speeds.

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Mid-Range DDR2 Alternative
Memory: 2x512MB Corsair PC-4200 Value
Price: $96 Shipped
To prove our claims about the near-parity in price between DDR and DDR2, we need to look no further than Corsair. Six months ago, this RAM sold for $250, and the price has been on a steady decline since then. Sure, it's CL-4 RAM, but it's important to note that the CL-4 rating is at 266 MHz. Due to the higher clock speed, the actual latency is 15 ns, where DDR-400 with CL-2.5 is 12.5 ns. When you add in the fact that the cheapest DDR capable of running at PC-4000 speeds costs at least $135 (GEIL Ultra PC-4000), it's hard to find fault with the current prices of DDR2. There are numerous alternatives for PC-4200 DDR2, including Patriot, Mushkin, Kingston, and OCZ. There aren't many generic DDR2 brands around, so just about any DDR2 should work fine - get whatever is cheapest.

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High-End DDR2 Recommendation
Memory: 2x512MB Crucial PC-5300 Value
Price: $172 Shipped
On the other hand, if you want more performance or improved overclocking, you can look for PC-5300 and higher ratings, which start at around $175. We've gone with Crucial for our recommendation; many of the other PC-5300 DIMMs will use Micron blanks, so why not go straight to the source? Those wishing to push for even higher bus speeds can find DDR2 rated to go as high as PC-6400, although that will cost $255 (Corsair XMS2). On the other hand, some people will prefer improved timings, in which case OCZ and Patriot both offer PC-4200 RAM capable of running at 3-2-2-4 timings for around $225. We even managed to reach DDR2-1000 speeds and beyond with both the Corsair and OCZ RAM while maintaining good timings, which should be more than enough for even the most demanding overclockers and enthusiasts.

We talked about 1GB DIMMs for DDR, and prices for DDR2 are pretty similar, with recognized brands starting at about $125 per DIMM. You can even get Patriot 3-2-2-4 timing 1GB DIMMs for $210 - a cheaper price per GB than the equivalent 512MB DIMMs! Finally, for the truly insane, you could go for 2GB PC-3200 DDR2 DIMMs. Unfortunately, with prices starting at $450 per DIMM, it's difficult to justify outside of the workstation/server market. It's interesting to note that most socket 939 and 775 motherboards list 4GB as the maximum amount of supported memory. 2GB DIMMs would be required to go beyond 4GB, of course, but we're not sure if the motherboards simply won't support 2GB DIMMs or if it's merely that they haven't been tested with such large amounts of RAM. If we're really going to go 64-bits in the near future, 2GB DIMMs and beyond will definitely be required.