LuxFX / They Think They’re Newsworthy

“Then I’m going to open a shoe store….and discover shoes that have never been discovered before!”

Well, I’m having to rethink a bit about my new budget power-computer upgrade. I was planning on filling the MB up to the gills with RAM because it can be found for really cheap! DDR400 RAM can be found for $126 for 1GB sticks. But the one company that sells memory this cheap, AIB, is simply notorious. Put it this way, in one group review, it received a 1.5 out of 10 rating. Yeouch. That’s the Freddy Got Fingered of computer reviews.

Real 1 GB sticks are very expensive if you want quality components. Corsair has a very attractively reviewed 2 GB kit (because I also found out, with DDR RAM you need to by them in pairs, just like old EDO RAM. it’s not required but a single stick is basically crippled) for $550 — quite a bit higher than the $250 I was hoping to pay for 2GB, and making my $500 4GB set skyrocket to $1,100. Yeouch!

So, I’m scaling back. I’m planning on overclocking this system as much as I can, and cheap RAM is just asking for failure. So I figured instead of 4 x 1GB I will end up with 4 x 512MB. OCZ has a very nice pair of 512s, VERY well reviewed, that run at $340. But I’ve also run into another cheap manufactor that, according to the reviews, is actually very good, too! I can get a pair of 512s with them for only $240 (as an online special price — they say that the same memory is $650 in stores!). But this isn’t any old DDR400 RAM! This is DDR533 RAM — in other words, PC4200. This means that it’s actually rated to be heavily overclocked!

Ah, it’s nice when massive amounts of research pays off like this…. It’s too bad I won’t have a 4GB system, but I suppose a 2GB system overclocked to 3.6Ghz would be, overall, better than a 4GB system at the stock rate of 3.0 Ghz.

I’m also hoping that CPU prices will go down by the time I’m ready to purchase, too. Intel is releasing their newest line next month (called Prescot) and at least some of the current line is expected to fall on Feb. 1st. The 2.8 for sure (according to rumor at least) will drop to be on level with 2.6 CPUS. I’m hoping that the 3.2s will drop to the 3.0 level though — then I’d get one! Yes!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2004 at 11:01 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.