[Lazyweb] Help me buy RAM.

[prog]

Are any of y'all smart & confident about Mac G5 RAM upgrade paths?

I need an additional gig of RAM, but I don't wanna pay the $20+ premium for brand-name memory; that's for suckers. Unfortunately it's been many years since I've bought Mac memory and I no longer know what's what.

According to System Profiler, I have four DDR SDRAM DIMMs installed, two speed-rated 2700 and two 3200. I note they are not DDR-2, even though I see that newly sold G5s seem to ship with that more efficient type of memory.

When I look at DDR DIMMs on pricewatch.com, I see some nicely priced ones but they're stuck all over with warnings that one's motherboard needs certain chipsets for them to work. I've no freaking clue what's on my motherboard, coz I have a Mac. I have a sneaking suspicion that they'd work anyway, but I can't be sure. So confusing.

Any advice?

Comments

[temvald.livejournal.com]

gotta disagree with you on the not buying brand-name ram. i mean, i agree that it's not worthwhile to pay the extra money for apple ram (or any other computer-manufacturer branded ram), but, given how difficult it is to troubleshoot bad ram, it's just not worth it to go with a real no-name.

besides, a lot of good manufactures have pretty cheap ram. for instance: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145440

$72.50 is pretty darned cheap for a gig of ram, and corsair is a good brand. and there's at least one comment in the reviews that says that it works on a g5 mac.

this is, of course, assuming that you have two free slots open...

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

I'd have to agree with that sentiment. Nowadays it seems like brand-name, or at least brand-reseller, memory has a significantly lower failure rate than fly-by-night stuff.

crucial.com? dealram.com?

[jtroutman.livejournal.com]

I have had good luck with Crucial memory (Micron is the manufacturer).

And I agree about the no-brand RAM. I have never found it to be worth the savings -- you will get bitten with a problem, maybe not now, maybe not on this purchase, and the 10 or 20 savings won't be worth it for the troubles and downtime.