Memory prices getting better !

Killrose

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Oct 26, 1999
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Has'nt Crucial (Micron) kinda lost it's edge since the PC133/PC2100 glory day's?
 

chizow

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Jun 26, 2001
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Originally posted by: newbiepcuser
Originally posted by: Killrose
Has'nt Crucial (Micron) kinda lost it's edge since the PC133/PC2100 glory day's?


You mean for the overclocking crew?

No, after their failed acquisition of Hynix and the discontinuation of DRAM production from other major players, MT has lost much of their market influence. They're 4th or 5th now out of 6 or so firms that still produce SDRAM. Samsung is the global leader by far. Then there's Hynix, Nanya, and Winbond. Infineon and MT are flip-flopping spots for last place. There's a few more smaller players, but most of the supply is coming from one of those firms.

Chiz
 

SinfulWeeper

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Sep 2, 2000
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Originally posted by: Killrose
Has'nt Crucial (Micron) kinda lost it's edge since the PC133/PC2100 glory day's?

Har...

I am mad at Crucial/Micron. I have a pair of PC2100 512MB sticks (Micron) that are dead and need RMA'ing. Micron refuses to do it because I am a end user and Crucial says their affiliations with Micron is zip.

From now on Crucial/Micron can kiss my arse. Even if they somehow come out with the best memory in the world at the lowest cost, I am never going to buy from them again.
 

DAPUNISHER

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Despite the people beating up on Crucial in this thread the fact is ram prices are falling as was predicted a few months ago by tech sector financial analysts. I just picked up 2 256mb sticks of Crucial 2100DDR SODIMM to put in my 900z for under 95$ shipped 2days direct :cool: BTW i have 2 256mb 2700DDR sticks of Crucial that run 403DDR@2.6v and 128mb&256mb sticks of 2100DDR Crucial that run@333DDR@2.6v@cas2 that I've had for 18+months so I have no complaints with Crucial ram myself. BTW, Micron doesn't always use the same high quality 6 layer PCB for the chips that the Crucial division does and Crucial will make any problem with their product right, I've seen guys get replacements on sticks they got from the fs/ft forum without even a receipt so I wouldn't group the quality of service and product of Micron and Crucial together despite Micron's ownership.
 

SinfulWeeper

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Dont get me wrong. I am very happy that memory prices are coming down. But I am never again going to buy crucial/micron memory. As you say about their pcb... I dont know about that. Just looking at my other crucial pc2100 128mb stick, they have the exact same chips. It would seem to me the chips failing... not the pcb.

Might be a little too early to call prices are falling. I bought this a week and a half to two weeks ago. The price is still the same ($96). Unless googlegear is slow to lower prices...
 

GoodRevrnd

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Dec 27, 2001
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Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
Despite the people beating up on Crucial in this thread the fact is ram prices are falling as was predicted a few months ago by tech sector financial analysts. I just picked up 2 256mb sticks of Crucial 2100DDR SODIMM to put in my 900z for under 95$ shipped 2days direct :cool: BTW i have 2 256mb 2700DDR sticks of Crucial that run 403DDR@2.6v and 128mb&256mb sticks of 2100DDR Crucial that run@333DDR@2.6v@cas2 that I've had for 18+months so I have no complaints with Crucial ram myself. BTW, Micron doesn't always use the same high quality 6 layer PCB for the chips that the Crucial division does and Crucial will make any problem with their product right, I've seen guys get replacements on sticks they got from the fs/ft forum without even a receipt so I wouldn't group the quality of service and product of Micron and Crucial together despite Micron's ownership.
I hate you. My brand new official PC2700 doesn't even run at CAS 2. :(
 

DAPUNISHER

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Actually the quality of the PCB is extremely important, almost as much so as the chips themselves, And bleeding edge performance memory always fetches a premium so don't expect XMS to drop much ;) For most users who either mildly overclock their ram or not at all there is a plethora of memory available right now at the best prices in some time, for instance the SODIMMS I just bought were 80+$ a stick awhile back and the 256mb sticks of 2700DDR linked above were approx. 80$ as well so you do the math.......
 

DAPUNISHER

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I hate you. My brand new official PC2700 doesn't even run at CAS 2
LMAO:D You know, they wouldn't do CAS2@166fsb in my P4S333@any voltage but they did it perfectly in my 8K3A+, now they're just sitting in their original shipping boxes waiting for prices to go back up so I can sell 'em :p
 

jiffylube1024

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Feb 17, 2002
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Originally posted by: SinfulWeeper
Originally posted by: Killrose
Has'nt Crucial (Micron) kinda lost it's edge since the PC133/PC2100 glory day's?

Har...

I am mad at Crucial/Micron. I have a pair of PC2100 512MB sticks (Micron) that are dead and need RMA'ing. Micron refuses to do it because I am a end user and Crucial says their affiliations with Micron is zip.

From now on Crucial/Micron can kiss my arse. Even if they somehow come out with the best memory in the world at the lowest cost, I am never going to buy from them again.

From what I gathered (in another post) you just had a stick (or two) of memory with Micron chips. Crucial is not Micron; they just use their chips. So, if you have a stick of CRUCIAL memory, then you get their lifetime warranty. However, if you just have Micron chips on whatever PCB, then it's not their problem. That would be like nVidia having to handle all RMA's for broken GeForce chips ;).
 

CaptnKirk

Lifer
Jul 25, 2002
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This is another example of people purchasing products that they do not understand the pedigree or production source that they obtain
.
Premium Chipsets - both are manufactured by Micron and Samsung, for example - - -
Micron captures their Premium chipsets and uses them to make CRUCIAL brand RAM.
Likewise with Samsung, the Premium chipsets become TRUE SAMSUNG.

Re-screens and seconds from both companies are sold to second and third party manufacturers, who use these chipsets as
memory on video cards, or mount them on a PC platform to be sold as 'Other' brands. The better third parties do hand pick the chipsets
to produce their performance RAM by adding some form of overclocking through the PC platform to make it perform at a higher level than
it was designed to perform at by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM Micron or Samsung).

Don't lose sight of the fact that these companies are manufacturing RAM that is specified to meet the JEDEC Standard of PC2100 or PC2700,
and they do have an overhead that allows them to exceed the standard by some degree, usually 10% to 15%.
However when you look at what is really being made, THERE IS NO JEDEC STANDARD FOR PC3000, PC3200, or ANYTHING ABOVE PC2700
The people who buy this 'Perfromance Memory' are taking a risk that it will perform as advertised, some will and some won't.
Corsair is one of the few that actually does, and they are willing to replace those which don't - that's an element of risk managment, offset by price.

Whenever you get a RAM stick that has 'Heatspreaders' on it, it is most likely covering Samsung, Micron, or even Winbond chipsets,
and removing the spreaders voids the warranty - but you get to see what they are overclocking.
Some of these major Chipset manufacturers ie. Micron and Samsung, no longer will sell product to certain third parties, and those parties have been
forced ot procure thier Chipsets from other manufacturers, like Winbond or Nanya.
There are only about 5 manufacturers in the world that actually have the technology to make the chipsets, but there are many companies that
can mount these chipsets onto PC platforms to finish making the RAM stick.

Read & heed

P.S. the price dropped some more today CRUCIAL
 

DAPUNISHER

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To make the Crucial deal even sweeter on top of the free 2day (and I mean 2 day) shipping and lifetime warranty use the EDIT: LOL! nearly forgot about the rule of no coupon codes :Q You guys know where to look for the additional 5% off ;)
 

Jstic

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Apr 11, 2002
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Hopefully, Corsair XMS memory will start to come down too. I love the PC3500 sticks.
 

SinfulWeeper

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Sep 2, 2000
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No, crucial is a division of Micron. If you look at crucial's web site. They say that they are a division of Micron. Everybody else who makes GeForce boards do not claim to be related to NVidia. So that shouldn't be expected of NVidia to fix 'broken' GeForce chips.

No... what Crucial and Micron are doing is bad business just covered up well in our lovely legal system. Is it so hard to RMA memory when they are the same people?
That would be like me allowing my son to steal goods from the stores, and not letting the cops into my residence to arrest him because it was not me... and they have no right in my house. What would happen with that is the cops will simply arrest me also without thinking twice.

Nope, what crucial/micron is doing with that memory is simply theft. Perhaps it would not be if they (one or the other since they are the same except with a simple clause on paper) both did not give their memory a lifetime warranty.
 

SinfulWeeper

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Sep 2, 2000
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As for the pcb, I know it effects performance. What I was implying was does it effect the life of the chips? I had some pretty good chips on poor pcb that did not perform any better than frozen molassis. But they still work... I also had good chips on good pcb and they failed. So I still fail to see what the fuss is of pcb as far as life of the chips is concerned.
 

chizow

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Jun 26, 2001
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Originally posted by: Jstic
Hopefully, Corsair XMS memory will start to come down too. I love the PC3500 sticks.

It has :) Corsair XMS has been dropping in price steadily as well. At least the higher-end stuff. you can get a stick of 512MB 3200C2 for ~$170-~$180 now, was around $200 just a few weeks ago. A stick of 512MB 3200LL is under $200 now as well.

Me, I just purchased 1024MB of TwinX XMS3200LL :D Been eyeing these bad boys since release. They've dropped around $50 since they were released, and finally broke through the $400 barrier yesterday. Googlegear slashed $6 and so did Monarch. Anyways, that was my price point, so I pulled the trigger, it'll probably go down more, but I wanna use it now :D Also, I'm not sure how much more the high-end stuff is gonna drop in price with the recent announcement that DDR-II is at least a year off before any board makers implement them. I don't see DDR-II compatibility as a priority for any of the current generation chipsets/desktop cpus. Once Hammer and Prescott roll out, DDR-II will see demand, but its gonna be DDR-I for the next year.

Chiz
 

BigJ

Lifer
Nov 18, 2001
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Originally posted by: chizow
Originally posted by: Jstic
Hopefully, Corsair XMS memory will start to come down too. I love the PC3500 sticks.

It has :) Corsair XMS has been dropping in price steadily as well. At least the higher-end stuff. you can get a stick of 512MB 3200C2 for ~$170-~$180 now, was around $200 just a few weeks ago. A stick of 512MB 3200LL is under $200 now as well.

Me, I just purchased 1024MB of TwinX XMS3200LL :D Been eyeing these bad boys since release. They've dropped around $50 since they were released, and finally broke through the $400 barrier yesterday. Googlegear slashed $6 and so did Monarch. Anyways, that was my price point, so I pulled the trigger, it'll probably go down more, but I wanna use it now :D Also, I'm not sure how much more the high-end stuff is gonna drop in price with the recent announcement that DDR-II is at least a year off before any board makers implement them. I don't see DDR-II compatibility as a priority for any of the current generation chipsets/desktop cpus. Once Hammer and Prescott roll out, DDR-II will see demand, but its gonna be DDR-I for the next year.

Chiz

Thats the memory I'm using in my friends system that I'm building him right now :D. Already removed and reattached the Northbridge heatsink on his 8RDA+ in anticipation. Was suprised at how easy it came off. Can't wait for 200mhz FSB ;)
 

chizow

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Jun 26, 2001
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Originally posted by: BigJ2078
Thats the memory I'm using in my friends system that I'm building him right now :D. Already removed and reattached the Northbridge heatsink on his 8RDA+ in anticipation. Was suprised at how easy it came off. Can't wait for 200mhz FSB ;)

Hehe, 200FSB at 2-2-2-6-1T :Q :D I'm also hoping it clears up issues I have running high FSB. I've read a few places saying the A7N8X starts to see instability at anything over ~195FSB. Having been tested at 200mhz, TwinX should leave no doubt. I can run my Samsung Original PC2700 at over 200FSB (very relaxed timings tho). Prime95 and Memtest86 will run all night with no errors, but I can't complete a single run of 3dmark! (that's GOTTA be a first :) ). It might very well be the AGP bus/Radeon9700pro at issue, but I'll certainly be able to clamp down on the problem once I get the TwinX.

As for your friend, think he'd notice if he got some rebadged BigJ2078 brand chips instead of his XMS? ;)

Chiz
 

BigJ

Lifer
Nov 18, 2001
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ooo if only he wouldnt notice the difference b/w 512mb and 1gb :( ;). Your the devil Chizow, the devil!
 

DAPUNISHER

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Originally posted by: SinfulWeeper
As for the pcb, I know it effects performance. What I was implying was does it effect the life of the chips? I had some pretty good chips on poor pcb that did not perform any better than frozen molassis. But they still work... I also had good chips on good pcb and they failed. So I still fail to see what the fuss is of pcb as far as life of the chips is concerned.
I'm no IEEE guy but if you post that question in the highly technical forum I'm certain some of those cats can provide a detailed explaination and probably a mulititude of ways the circuit board the chips are mounted on can effect performance and stability and issues that a cheap 4 layer board can cause ;) I'd like to know how you can say with such absolute certainty the chip/s are dead and not that circuitry on the PCB is fried/faulty and how that determination is conclusively arrived at??? :confused:
 

PeeluckyDuckee

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Feb 21, 2001
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Just picked up a pair of PC2100 512mb crucial sticks last week @ $99 each with the 5% coupon. Nice to see prices finally dropping. Couldn't wait much longer, or my hardware will become obsolete, heh. Same price for local generics, so I'm happy with the purchase :)

Corsair is nice, but too expensive for me.
 

chizow

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Jun 26, 2001
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Originally posted by: drewdogg808
man...that twinx xms LL sounds awesome. makes my xms 3200 cas2 not look so good anymore. ;)

Hehe I'm sure your cas2 is just fine :D

You got water coming your way tho, I couldn't justify doing both so I went with the RAM (plus I just installed my rheo and tidied my case wires up again.)

I wanna run 200 x 12 = 2400 @ cas 2-2-2-6-1T....that would be sweet :D

Chiz