Is performance grade memory really worth the price?

the_x5the_x5 the Xzianthian Join Date: 2004-03-02 Member: 27041Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">your opinion please, backed with data</div>Well?

For newbies, know that there are 3 main things when shopping for memory:
Size: in powers of 2, current chips are measured in MB or GB
Speed: Depends on type, but with DDR2 for example, a higher speed wih faster timings is faster memory.
Grade/Quality: Value, Normal, or Performance

What matters most in your opinion? Would you spend more for a performance grade memory DIMM when you could buy the same size in a slightly faster speed chip that is normal grade?

I'm curious too see your opinions. And <i>please</i> back your arguements up with some sort of data.

Comments

  • WarriorWarrior Join Date: 2003-02-16 Member: 13624Members
    The difference in value,performance memory is its ability to be overclocked and stability. While some value ram can be pretty good, high end ram will generally support more volts, higher bandwidth and the tightest of timings. For Intel systems bandwidth is the most important. I think timings show the biggest improvement for AMD systems however that might not be the case with AM2. For my C2D system I went for high end ram.
  • the_x5the_x5 the Xzianthian Join Date: 2004-03-02 Member: 27041Members, Constellation
    Yes, that's good information for the general community. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" /> However, I knew all that, the question I asked was do <i>you</i> think it's worth the price?
  • SpoogeSpooge Thunderbolt missile in your cheerios Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 67Members
    If you're going to spend most of your free time tweeking your settings and running benchmark programs to post your results online, then yes it's worth the price.

    If you're going to install it, adjust it for peak performance, and then never touch it again, then no it's not worth the price.
  • WarriorWarrior Join Date: 2003-02-16 Member: 13624Members
    <!--quoteo(post=1618591:date=Apr 3 2007, 01:46 AM:name=the_x5)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_x5 @ Apr 3 2007, 01:46 AM) [snapback]1618591[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
    Yes, that's good information for the general community. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" /> However, I knew all that, the question I asked was do <i>you</i> think it's worth the price?
    <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    I misunderstood the question.

    So if all you do is surf the web and do nothing that puts your CPU usage over like 10% then value ram is fine. If you do any gaming, overclocking or anything that stresses your CPU then yes performance ram imo is worth it. The ability to maintain high bandwidth with the lowest timings will give performance increase in the apps that will use it. The most important factor is stability which very few value ram can provide. Now you dont need 600 dollar gaming ram thats running at 1200MHZ. Some decent 800MHZ or what ever your motherboard supports will be fine as long as its not 'value ram'. Some people have good results with cheap ram but I prefer to pay the little extra.
  • SwiftspearSwiftspear Custim tital Join Date: 2003-10-29 Member: 22097Members
    Biggest difference is gaurenteed reliably. If it's worth the extra money to you to have it work the first time exactly the way it's supposed to then it's worth the extra money. It tends to slightly overpreform on it's specifications as well, whereas bargain RAM will likely under preform, possibly be unreliable, and possibly just not work right from the start.

    It can be immensely annoying to have to troubleshoot RAM failures, but if the cheap stuff works the way it's supposed to right away it's hard to rationalize the price difference.

    I guess it's sort of a gamble.
  • BlackMageBlackMage [citation needed] Join Date: 2003-06-18 Member: 17474Members, Constellation
    edited April 2007
    when operating in standard conditions, "performance" memory only slightly outperforms the cheap stuff, you'll notice a difference when:
    - you have a lot of noncontiguous* stuff being read from memory (as part of a caching mechanism) because the CAS latency is a bit lower on the expensive stuff
    - two weeks/six months/ten years later when the cheapo stick fails

    you will not notice the difference when:
    - large chunks are being read into cache (that's your harddrive being slow)
    - large, contiguous* chunks are being read from cache (in theory, the memory controller will know to request certain bits of memory and pull it over to the CPU's cache and queue up the next requests so that the data arrives as soon as it's ready to be processed, allowing the memory to function at near-maximum speed ... yeah. it's still fast enough that it's most often the CPU that's the bottleneck.)

    as opposed to disk storage where contiguous means "physically next to," the word in this context describes pieces of data that would logically be requested in quick succession (or so the caching mechanism is lead to believe. this is what we call a cache-miss. they suck.)

    edit: if you really, really, really want me to get the stats, i'll see if i can find them (but they're stats for five year old server architectures)
  • esunaesuna Rock Bottom Join Date: 2003-04-03 Member: 15175Members, Constellation
    <!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><b>Is performance grade memory really worth the price?</b>
    <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Backed up with data<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    yes

    <a href="http://dynamic.nasdaq.com/asp/PMI.asp" target="_blank">data</a>
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