Macbook (or any other) memory
 

I did a quick search, but did not see any recent answers.

Just bought Macbooks for my wife and myself. The Apple prices for RAM were insane. Even with an educational discount, for 2 GB, it's 450 dollars if ordered with the computer (instead of 500), or in store, 540 dollars (instead of 600)!

I've seen prices all over the place. I'm familiar with Crucial's site, but know they can be pricey, too. Where is everyone else buying their memory these days? When I bought for my Thinkpad years ago, I bought on eBay and got the same Samsung Memory IBM was selling at half price. Of course, I don't want to end up with junk that stops working once a year or more!

Thanks!

fuzz

Corsair XMS or Corsair ValueSelect memory is, IMHO, the way to go. Corsair [particularly the XMS series] is one of the darlings of the high-end gaming community. It is fast, stable, widely validated, high-end stuff. Their ValueSelect line is great too, pretty much the same stuff just less stable when significantly over-clocked - something I doubt you will be doing.

I would stay away from Crucial personally. I have had compatibility problems with them in the past and their prices aren't that great either.

As I said, Corsair [there are other good brands to be sure - Geil, Mushkin, OCZ, etc] has been validated for just about every major manufacturer out there and even their value line is very high quality stuff; fast and efficient too.

For ultimate speed you could get a 1 GB stick of CorsairXMS DDR-2 667 for about $185 each [$385 total for [2] 1 GB sticks].

Corsair ValueSelect RAM [still fast, stable, and perfect for about 95% of users out there] runs about $80 for a 1 GB stick of DDR-2 667 [all prices are from NewEgg.com, the most reliable discount mail-order vendor on the planet, they are superb].

I would recommend [2] 1 GB sticks of Corsair ValueSelect RAM [DDR-2 @ 667] for a total [including shipping] of about $185.

search
 

do a quick search over at macrumors.com

there is a thread there with details of the 115$ 1GB upgrade.

remember, there are TWO 256MB sticks in there, so get either a 1GB card, or two 512 MB cards.

I would get the 1GB card. Even though with these new lappys and the dual core chipset, RAM should be PAIRED for best performance, next to 2GB, the 1.256MB so 1 GB stick and a stock chip seems the fastest, even 10% more than the 1GB.

for most tasks.

I've purchased memory at both my local parts shop (when in a hurry) and at Frys. Frys almost always has some kind of good deal going on.

You can also always check out PriceWatch, but then you might end up dealing with 'net vendors with unknown service records.

David

Now that Mac is using intel chips, it makes it really easy to get RAM.

http://www.pricewatch.com is the best for computer part searches
http://www.pricegrabber.com is best for other stuff

as far as I've seen.

I'll try and check what the mobo/ram specs are on the macbooks, and link some possibilities.

Why?

Look four posts up - already done: 200-pin SO-DIMMs DDR-2 @667 5300 2GBs max...

And, nobody is going to beat [equal - maybe] NewEgg for price, customer serivce, and reliablity.

Pricewatch now includes newegg and tigerdirect in their listings. I agree they are both very good.

It wasn't really that hard to buy Mac RAM before. The RAM has been standardized for years, although there are rare incompatibilities. You can buy from anywhere, and there are price comparisons here for example: http://www.dealram.com/ (They also do pricing for flash media cards, etc.)

I tend to stick with vendors I know are Mac-centric, because at least if I have a problem I know they'll know what I'm talking about, and I know they will not say "Oh, we don't guarantee it'll work in that". My vendor of choice for a few years has been Data Memory Systems in New Hampshire. http://www.datamem.com/ May not be absolute lowest price, but they're always close enough for me. More importantly, I have called them once about a bad memory module. They answered the phone quickly, accepted responsibility quickly and overnighted a replacement. Memory doesn't fail too often, but when it does, you want it fixed pronto, and I can attest that these folks are quick to make it right.

Apple's used the same ram as everyone else for quite some time now... I don't think the intel switch made the RAM used any easier to obtain.

I could be offbase, as I don't get into hardware too much, but anytime I have searched for ram over the past several years, Apple's ram requirements have not been anything obscure or unique.

We got Mushkin 1gb chips in May for $69 each from www.outpost.com. They've been working without problem.

Last week we got Transcend 1gb chips, again from www.outpost.com for $72 each.

I like Frys/Outpost.com for their $9.99 overnight airborne express. You can also order as late as midnight (eastern) and still able to get it the next day.

Try checking out www.dealram.com - they give you an easy comparison of on-line memory prices for your MacBook.

Wow, look at that. NewEgg is the cheapest... :rolleyes: ;)