I'm just about to write a piece on "we cannot shop by voltage" for memory, since finding 1.35V is almost impossible as most stores list by frequency only, but then I wondered - what do people actually shop for when they buy memory?
Brand, frequency, and colour. So, basically, I'm ruling out anything that's a dull PCB with chips on. I like the shiny.
In order of importance: 1. Frequency/timings 2. Voltage (as a general rule, lower the better for a given set of freq/timing values) 3. Reviews/brand (basically knowing what ICs go on the PCB, whether the RAM overclocks well, etc.) 4. Price 5. Warranty Heatsink color/design - depends on whether I'm buying for a mod or for a general-purpose rig. Even then, heatspreaders/sinks are a shot of paint away from being suitable.
Pretty heatsinks! But mostly though, I sort by frequency and then just try to find the lower voltage stuff.
I tend to only buy OCZ gear these days, other than that, i have no real preference to what memory i use. Sam
i reckon from new i have to consider in order: 1. overclocking; will my RAM have enough speed to cope with my overclock 2. PRICE 3. brand/warranty - try to buy ram with life time warranty now or 5-10years. 4. timings - not too high on my list as it makes little diff but if i can have lower timings for same price then all the better. 5. low voltage is irrelevant IMO it save you only a couple of pennies off your bill for the year, just get the RAM that is correct for the platform i.e. 1.65V or less for intel
brand then Price TBH memory has always been much of a muchness afaic i pick one of four reasonable brands and pick the one i think is best priced
I'm surprised how much people care about brand TBH. I just buy whatever brand is cheapest for what I want, I can't really see any difference between Corsair, OCZ, Patriot, G. Skill, Crucial, Geil, Kingston et al. apart from different heatspreader designs and colours.
well you just mentioned all the big brands and i dont think there is much diff really. however i think they mean brand as in actually branded RAM not OEM type stuff like megaRAM or team alpha etc etc
Oh yeah, I never buy the cheap stuff, and I never buy the value stuff from the big brands either (no heatspreader, no sale).
Brand, Frequency, then price/heatspreaders (Everyone likes the shiney) Some brands have a tendency, from what I've discovered and researched, to work better with certain brands, chipsets, etc. of motherboards and processors.
brand first for me, never had problem with Corsair, so i'll keep using them. Frequency and Price are a tie second, i want enough frequency (eg, 800Mhz for DDR2 Q6600, 1600Mhz for i5) that doesn't restrict my overclock, but has to be at reasonable price.
Almost solely on price tbh. I try to avoid VALUE brands for my own rig, but for family PCs I'll grab it without any compunction. My usual want is to buy RAM which will run at the stated speeds, with acceptable timings, without it costing a fortune. I don't care a hang about overclocking. Been there, done that, killed the hardware etc
I always go for Corsair, so my vote goes for "brand" BUT the Corsair brand also means a lifetime warranty so i also ticked "warranty".
to put the price of the low voltage RAM into real money from bit-techs article. lets assume that after all your normal electricity use your on your tier 2 price for me at around £0.10. say you use your PC for 4 hours every day in any given month (i dont cause i work but i use it more at weekend) this costs assuming your using the 1.2V as opposed to 1.5V kits (with the difference in power 24W) around 28p a month so for the year you save a grand total of £3.36. granted if you leave your PC on all year you actually save £20.76 but not many do that. i think its fair to say that the low voltage RAM will command a premium and i would imagine that to be quite a bit more than standard RAM. so you would have to offset your initial extra cost against the savings you make. For the £3.36 id save if i switched to low voltage memory its hardly worth it and i wouldnt acutally save any money as i usually dont keep my PC more than 3 years thus only obtaining a maximum saving of £10.08 which im sure would not offset the premium price tag just to have low voltage memory
I found out heatsink design was pretty important just after I'd bought mine, if I'd gotten Dominator or anything with a larger heatsink it wouldn't have fit under my Fenrir. Other than that; price, brand, frequency.