Another drop in Crucial memory pricing 6/15/2001

[AnimEva]

i wonder why crucial hasnt made any 512 meg chips, i am very surprised no one asked or wondered why no 512 mb chips, i have been looking for those through crucial.

 

[frizzlefry]

<< i wonder why crucial hasnt made any 512 meg chips, i am very surprised no one asked or wondered why no 512 mb chips, i have been looking for those through crucial. >>


I don't know what you're talking about. They DO have 512 MB chips. Unless you're talking about DDR?

 

[pkypkypky]

the best thing about this is that the shipping is free. Crucial web promo makes it even better. Ordered &amp; receieved another 256mb for myself + one for the pc i'm building for a friend.

 

[LukFilm]

Just to let you know, I ordered &quot;refurb&quot; RAM from Crucial and it's working great. That saved me another $4 off the webpromo price plus another $0.90 from my Paypal debit card PLUS $2.10 from Ebates makes this $7 savings!!! $49 for 256MB DDR, I'm not complaining

 

[SLEEPER5555]

wow so the web promo does work this is flaming hot here!

 

[princejoe]

I've been thinking to upgrade my 128MB for my PIII 600MHZ, but I am not sure which brands of memory I should get. I think I bought the generic 128 when I built, would it work if I put in the crucial 128MB with the generic 128MB? Also, PNY, Kensinton and Crucial, which one is the best? Or are they all the same? If they are the same, I will jump on this deal, thanks.

 

[BigSmooth]

<< I've been thinking to upgrade my 128MB for my PIII 600MHZ, but I am not sure which brands of memory I should get. I think I bought the generic 128 when I built, would it work if I put in the crucial 128MB with the generic 128MB? Also, PNY, Kensinton and Crucial, which one is the best? Or are they all the same? If they are the same, I will jump on this deal, thanks. >>


The Crucial should work fine with whatever other RAM is already there.

As for your second question, all RAM is not the same. Crucial is considered one of the best brands out there for speed and stability, especially at these prices.
However, if you do mix different kinds of RAM in your system, the slower RAM will generally limit your performance.

 

[Praxis]

<< I've been thinking to upgrade my 128MB for my PIII 600MHZ, but I am not sure which brands of memory I should get. I think I bought the generic 128 when I built, would it work if I put in the crucial 128MB with the generic 128MB? >>

If you want to continue using your current memory it may not make too much sense to buy this Crucial stuff because you won't be able to run it any faster than your old stick. The stuff most folks are talking about runs at 133 MHz at CAS 2 (which is faster than CAS 3), and although this is a great price for memory of this quality, it isn't the least expensive RAM out there right now (I just bought 2 sticks of high density PC133 for $22 each, plus $11 S&amp;H). Your current memory may be limited to 100 MHz at CAS 3. Check what your current RAM is rated to handle by installing a free program called CTSPD.
Also, having great memory won't improve your performance unless you go into your BIOS and tweak the options. Some motherboards allow you to run the memory faster (or slower) than the FSB speed. If your BIOS allows it and your memory can handle it you should run your RAM at 133 and CAS 2 with SDRAM Bank Interleave set to 4-bank/way. If your system becomes flakey, back off the memory settings. Here's a site devoted to BIOS tweaking.
Is your PIII600 running at 100 FSB or 133? Is the board made by Intel or is it a Via Apollo Pro mobo (which can handle very cheap high density memory)?


<< So I should upgrade from my 16 mb's of RAM? I have 4 slots, but they are all filled. I have 4mb's in each slot. >>

If your motherboard is using 4 MB sticks it is probably a 486 or early Pentium class board using EDO or FPM memory, not SDRAM. However some boards have both 72 pin EDO slots as well as 1 or 2 SDRAM slots, so it would help if we knew which model you have. If your machine has or can accept SDRAM and a 200+ MHz CPU it might make sense to upgrade it if you are generally happy with it.

 

[Tacoma99]

It seems like they drop the prices every weekend, as I always get an email from them proclaiming &quot; Memory Price Alert &quot;. After all, you can only have so many sales, and people lose interest in &quot; sale &quot; prices. I have so much memory now friends think I've started my own FAB! I will say if prices for Crucial 128MB PC133 CL2 or 128MB PC2100 CL2.5 drop to $15 with free shipping, I'll dust off my credit card.

 

[princejoe]

thanks for the info, Praxis. I am using PIII 600 with a 133MHZ FSB, with a ASUS motherboard P3V4X, which is a VIA apollo Pro motherboard. What is CAS 2 and CAS 3? Sorry, I am not too familiar with this. What do u mean by high density memory? Is it as good as the brand name such as crucial or PNY? Were u suggesting that I should get rid of the old generic memory and put in new crucial memory, that way it would enhance the performance? Sorry to ask u all these questions, but I am not a expert in this. Thanks

 

[Fiddy]

Micron Technologies warned a few days ago that they are going to missed by -0.50 cents a share. They are writing off $265 MILLION dollars of inventory. Better get it now while it's cheap

 

[Linh]

^

 

[Praxis]

<< thanks for the info, Praxis. I am using PIII 600 with a 133MHZ FSB, with a ASUS motherboard P3V4X, which is a VIA apollo Pro motherboard. What is CAS 2 and CAS 3? Sorry, I am not too familiar with this. What do u mean by high density memory? Is it as good as the brand name such as crucial or PNY? Were u suggesting that I should get rid of the old generic memory and put in new crucial memory, that way it would enhance the performance? >>

From Crucial's web page:

<< Latency (also called CAS Latency): The amount of time in nanoseconds (often measured in clock cycles) between a request to read the memory, and when it is actually output. SDRAMs are typically referred to as CL2 or CL3, with CL2 parts being faster. >>

The upshot seems to be that CAS 2 memory is perhaps 5-10% faster than CAS 3, about the same advantage that you can get by manipulating certain settings in the BIOS, like pushing bank timing from 10 ns to Turbo and using 4 bank DIMM interleave. Change one thing at a time; back off if system instability results. Sometimes this can seem very capricious. I have a stick of Mushkin Budget PC133 that was supposed to be CAS 3 but did CAS 2 stably in 3-4 different systems, but wouldn't even boot Windows at CAS 2 if there was another stick of CAS 2 stuff in the machine. So I'm running it as CAS 3 now, figuring that 384 MB of CAS 3 is better than 256 MB of CAS 2.
I may be wrong about this, since even Crucial doesn't report particularly significant performance gains above 192 MB (in fact a couple of benchmarks were even a tiny bit SLOWER with 256 than with 192 MB). Winstone benchmark increases from 128 MB to 256 were typically only a couple of percent or so with Win98,W2K and NT4. Surprisingly you got FAR more performance increase (at least with this benchmark) by migrating from Win98SE to W2K (an average of 29%). But I run Linux on the box, which can be a bit of a memory hog if (like me) you don't know exactly which services you should disable.
As to the density question, high density SDRAM is very cheap, but not noted as high quality stuff. It will probably only run at CAS 3, though some folks report running it at CAS 2 pushed (I never tried to run mine at CAS 2). Only some chipsets can handle high density DIMMs, particular the VIA KT133, KT133A, KL133, KM133, KX133 and your Via Apollo Pro chipset. (In fact, your particular board passed muster with Syncmax's popular high density RAM.) I don't know how well high density and low density DIMMs co-exist in the same motherboard, but I haven't heard that there is any problem.
It seems to me that you have two reasonable upgrade paths.
1) Find another use for your old stick if it can't handle CAS 2 at PC133 (did you download CTSPD or try running your stick at 133 FSB CAS 2?) and buy 128-256 MB of this CAS 2 PC133 stuff.
2) Buy a stick of cheap high density PC133 and run it in tandem with your current RAM.
Choice Number 1 would cost $30-35 more (for 256 MB), but would probably be faster than Choice 2 in Windows for most things. But be warned, I'm not an expert; it?s all just Juju &amp; Black Magic to me.

 

[ramz]

For an Iwill KK266R, is 256 of PC133 of CAS2 enough for overclocking, or do I need a higher PC rating, i.e. pc150?

 

[cherrytwist]

<< 256MB PC2100 DDR-SDRAM, 184-pin DIMM $59.39 >>



I got this for $56.09 the other day shipped UPS 2 day. Thanks!

 

[Salvador]

Has anyone been keeping track of the Crucial prices in the past week or so? I haven't and I'm wondering if the prices have gone up at all? I can swear that 128 mb's of PC133 Cas2 was about $30 a week or so ago and now it's about $34.

Am I mistaken?

Sal

 

[princejoe]

Praxix, where do I download the program&quot;CTSPD&quot;?

 

[StayPuff]

princejoe:

Get it here:

ftp://ftp.heise.de/pub/ct/ctsi/ctspd092.zip

Linkified

 

[Salvador]

What is CTSPD?

Sal

 

[Yo2]

<< For an Iwill KK266R, is 256 of PC133 of CAS2 enough for overclocking, or do I need a higher PC rating, i.e. pc150? >>



256 is plenty and mine is stable at 2-2-2 up to 157MHz at CAS 2 and if the app is not too taxing I can go to 161MHz

Yo

 

[GermyBoy]

Some guy at work just offered me $30 for a 128MB stick of PC100 today. I thought to myself that 256MB of Crucial looked great at about $60.

By the way, why aren't you supposed to mix RAM from different companies? I've always done that and never have had any problems. Interested in the reasoning behind it all...

Germy

 

[Gort]

Looks like Crucial is no longer on ebates and they dropped their webpromo to 10% from 15%. Oh well, snooze you lose

 

[DavidTigerFan]

What are you smoking? I just went there and its still coming up as 15% off...

-D

 

[GreenLantern]

This price of $56 (w/15%) for PC2100 256MB, Non-par, non-ecc has been the same for the past 2 weeks.

 

[Gort]

Click through..inside it says only a 10% online discount, and I sure can't find them at ebates. Sorry if I'm missing something. I have ordered with ebates and the webpromo before.

EDIT I see what is going on now...%15 is only for a one time order. Sorry, I think i know what to do.