Name brand CPU's from China/HongKong and "AMD-only" RAM?

[o]

I see a lot of RAM, particularly DDR2 on ebay that specifying "AMD only" and am wondering if its low cost is because its likely to be unreliable, or actually because its limited application.

CPUs I woudnt think could be faked, but would they likely be factory discards or underperformers?

Anyone know much about this...?

 

[sm625]

Generally they say that because they are selling low density memory. You'd have to google "low density vs high density DDR" in order to get more info on that. At this point, in 2016, I would try to avoid all these noname brands, since you should be able to obtain premium RAM for a good price given how obsolete DDR2 is today. For example, you can find G-SKILL 2x2 800MHz DDR2 F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ on ebay for $30. This is a 5 egg product on newegg, so even though it might cost $10 or $15 more compared to the nameless stuff, your chance of it actually working for you is greatly increased.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I have some experience with this stuff.

The cheap DDR2 on ebay and elsewhere, is "High density", aka "AMD only". This is because the memory controller on AM2/AM2+/AM3 CPUs can handle the x4 chips, whereas the Intel memory controller on contemporary DDR2 chipsets only liked the x8 low-density memory.

It does work, in an AM2/AM2+ rig, in some cases.

I put some in a friend's AM2+ rig with an AM3 X4 640 CPU, he claimed to have issues with it later that day after I left. (But it booted fine, and memory tested fine for me.)

I took the RAM out, and then some months later, I put it into an NV-chipset AM2+ board. (2x4GB for 8GB total in two slots.) I had to re-install Windows, because the computer had been sitting for some years in storage, and the HDD was bad, but other than that, the RAM handled a Win7 64-bit installation just fine, and seemed fine to me.

I gave that PC to a different friend. He has yet to get back to me how it's working out for him.